Vahe Dolmazian also said that he will not be influenced by Pashinian’s pledges to imprison Karapetian as well as the leaders of two other major opposition forces that challenged the ruling Civil Contract party in the June 7 parliamentary elections. Dolmazian downplayed such statements denounced by Pashinian’s critics as illegal.
“The leader of the country may make different political statements due to different circumstances,” the former prosecutor told journalists. “He does not give instructions.”
Karapetian was arrested in June last year hours after condemning Pashinian’s attempts to depose the top clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church and vowing to defend it “in our way.” Pashinian responded by pledging to “deactivate” him.
Karapetian was initially accused of calling for a violent overthrow of the government. Law-enforcement authorities also charged him with tax evasion, fraud and money laundering in July after he announced plans to challenge Pashinian in the June 2026 elections. The Russian-Armenian tycoon, who strongly denies all charges, was moved to house arrest before going on trial in April.
Armenia - Businessman and opposition leader Samvel Karapetian stands trial in Yerevan, April 17, 2026.
At the start of the trial, Dolmazian refused to free Karapetian pending a verdict in the case. He thus prevented the tycoon from physically attending his Strong Armenia alliance’s election campaign rallies. Karapetian’s political allies and other opposition figures claimed that Dolmazian extended his house arrest in order to boost the ruling party’s electoral chances.
Pashinian has repeatedly vowed to send Karapetian and the two other top opposition leaders, former President Robert Kocharian and businessman Gagik Tsarukian, back to prison. He claims to have won a popular mandate for doing that. Pashinian’s party polled 49.8 percent of the vote on June 7, according to the official election results rejected by the Armenian opposition as fraudulent.
Law-enforcement authorities brought fresh criminal charges against Kocharian and Tsarukian in the immediate aftermath of the polls. Neither man has been arrested so far, unlike hundreds of other opposition members and supporters detained in recent months. Several dozen of them, including a number of prominent opposition figures, remain under arrest on what they call politically motivated charges.
Despite the wave of arrests mostly sanctioned by judges, Pashinian again lambasted Armenian courts on Thursday.