The Yerevan Criminal Court of General Jurisdiction ruled to apply detention for two months as a preventive measure against Russian Armenian businessman and philanthropist Samvel Karapetyan.

“The decision is clearly illegal, we cannot imagine what the reasoning is,” Karapetyan’s lawyers told journalists.

Samvel Karapetyan was charged under Part 2 of Article 422 of the Criminal Code of Armenia, namely “a public call aimed at seizing power, violating territorial integrity, renouncing sovereignty, or forcibly overthrowing the constitutional order, which was made using publicly displayed works or mass media or information or communication technologies.”

This is about Samvel Karapetyan’s interview with Armenian News-NEWS.am, where he, in particular, had stated: “A small group, forgetting the Armenian history, the thousands of years history of the Armenian Church, has attacked the Armenian [Apostolic] Church, the Armenian people. I have always stood with the Armenian [Apostolic] Church and the Armenian people. If the politicians do not succeed, then we will intervene in the campaign against the [Armenian Apostolic]] Church in our own way.”

At around 3am today, Karapetyan, accompanied by the deputy police chief of Armenia, was first taken from his house to a police station, and then to the Investigative Committee. Early in the morning, it became known that PM Nikol Pashinyan had dismissed the director of the National Security Service, Armen Abazyan, from his post. The reason for the dismissal, according to some reports, is that Abazyan had refused to carry out Pashinyan’s instruction and had not made a “show” outside Karapetyan’s house.