The time frame for the criminal prosecution against the Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II and the bishops who are also defendants with him has been suspended, Factor TV's sources in the Armenian law enforcement system report.

The Catholicos of All Armenians and the other defendants have been charged under Section 2 of Article 507 of the Armenian Criminal Code, for which the maximum penalty is imprisonment for a term of 2 years. The act attributed to them is considered of minor gravity, since according to the regulations of the Criminal Code, those acts provided for by the Code for which the maximum penalty does not exceed 2 years of imprisonment are considered minor crimes.

According to Article 192 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, public criminal prosecution in pretrial proceedings cannot last more than three months from the moment of its initiation on charges of a minor crime. This means that the public criminal prosecution against the Catholicos of All Armenians and the aforesaid bishops, which began on February 14, can continue until May 14 at the most.

But the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that in exceptional cases, when the interests of justice so require, the superior prosecutor, upon the motion of the supervising prosecutor, is authorized to extend the terms of public criminal prosecution on charges of a minor or medium-gravity crime by a maximum of one month, which, in fact, was done.

According to Factor TV, the basis for suspending the time frame for this criminal prosecution was the fact that an international inquiry was conducted within the framework of the case, and without receiving a response to it, it is impossible to resolve the issue of continuing or terminating the criminal prosecution against the defendant.

Interestingly, the Catholicos of All Armenians and the aforementioned bishops are charged with obstructing the execution of a judicial act against Bishop Gevorg Saroyan, the Primate of the Diocese of Masis of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

It is not known what international inquiry may be in question within the framework of this charge, on the basis of which the time frame for criminal prosecution against the aforementioned defendants was suspended, but thus Armenian law enforcement agencies get the opportunity to extend the pretrial proceedings.