During Thursday’s court hearing in the case of opposition Strong Armenia Alliance leader Samvel Karapetyan, the public prosecutor motioned that Karapetyan's house arrest be extended for another three months, since the summoned witnesses have not yet been questioned in court.

"Considering our workload, I believe that we will most likely not finish the examination of the evidence within three months, I believe that it is time-consuming, three months will not even be enough, since documentary evidence will be examined first," the public prosecutor said.

The prosecution believes that Karapetyan may influence witnesses, and there is also a need to assess the risk of escape.

The defense lawyers, however, objected to this motion. In particular, attorney Armen Feroyan stated that keeping Samvel Karapetyan under house arrest during the entire period of examining the more than 130-volume case in order to present questions to witnesses is unlawful.

“There is a list of summoned persons, it is not difficult to prohibit the contact between the persons on that list and Samvel Karapetyan,” he argued.

In turn, defense lawyer Lianna Gasparyan argued that house arrest is no different from prison arrest, it is not justified and substantiated in any way. She expressed the opinion that being released on bail alone is satisfactory.