Investigative Group of 53 is in Decisive Inaction, Says Samvel Karapetyan's Defender

Aram Vardevanyan, a member of Samvel Karapetyan's legal team, has written: "Dear colleagues, on October 16, 2025, the Anti-Corruption Court extended Samvel Karapetyan's illegal detention for one month. The court effectively acknowledged that there is an issue with the time limits for criminal prosecution. The investigative body and the prosecutor's office have directly ignored the court's decision. Moreover, during the periods preceding and following that decision, we had clearly documented this issue in written requests, explicitly demanding to halt the delay of the case and to cease at least the pre-trial secrecy that has been used against us. We even petitioned to separate the absurd accusations from the proceedings and to send those to court, or to respect the legal rights and terminate them.

On December 11, 2025, the Court of Appeals, considering one of the demands stated in our complaint, clearly indicated that the further delays in Samvel Karapetyan's criminal proceedings (time limits) are problematic and result in violations of fundamental human rights. The same Court of Appeals, which did not satisfy our complaint under undeniably political persecution conditions, has made this legal stance. I would also like to inform that the investigative body has received petitions demanding active measures to prevent the delays in the investigation, which have been rejected. Therefore, the investigative body is not taking active measures; on the contrary, the group of 53 investigators is in decisive inaction, despite Samvel Karapetyan being in custody for about six months, and the only action they have taken was yet another 'unprecedented' act, pursuant to which they searched the home of a linguistic expert who had stated that there was no call in Samvel Karapetyan's speech protecting the Mother See," Vardevanyan wrote.