The crowd led by members of Karapetian’s family, opposition lawmakers and senior clergymen chanted “Samvel!” and “Freedom!” as it gathered in a public park elsewhere in the city center and then headed to the National Security Service (NSS) headquarters which also houses the maximum-security prison.
In a written appeal to the protesters read out by one of his lawyers outside the compound, Karapetian pledged to fight for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation and urged Armenians to “consolidate around a new force” that will be set up for that purpose. He also thanked them for their support.
“With their attitude, the people are demonstrating that it’s the authorities, not me, that are in detention,” he said.
Organizers of the demonstration did not reveal their further steps. One of them, Karapetian’s nephew Narek, said only that it is “beginning of a long journey.”
Karapetian had already issued about a dozen statements from his prison cell, lambasting Pashinian, predicting his imminent downfall and seemingly staking claim to power. He charged, in particular, that Pashinian has “completely destroyed the country's external security,” “ruined” its relations with Russia and is now shamefully begging the leaders of Azerbaijan and Turkey for peace.
Karapetian was prosecuted hours after condemning on June 17 Pashinian’s attempts to depose the top clergy of the Armenian Church and vowing to defend it “in our own way.” His statement immediately provoked a series of furious social media posts by Pashinian.
“Now I will interfere with you in my own way, you scoundrel,” the premier wrote before the tycoon was arrested and charged with calling for a violent overthrow of the Armenian government.
Karapetian’s family and lawyers have laughed off the accusations. They have portrayed Pashinian’s posts as clear proof that law-enforcement authorities acted on his orders.
Armenia’s leading opposition groups have also condemned the criminal case as politically motivated and linked it to Pashinian’s campaign against the clergy. They claim that the campaign is in turn aimed at neutralizing a major source of opposition to his further concessions to Azerbaijan and Turkey.
“Today Samvel Karapetian is under arrest because he defended the Armenian Apostolic Church,” Anna Grigorian, a parliament deputy from the main opposition Hayastan alliance, said at the rally that preceded Friday’s march. “The man who issued that [arrest] order can now see that the thousands of people standing here also defend the church.”
Karapetian, 59, was born and raised in Armenia and moved to Russia in the early 1990s. He has financed many charity projects in Armenia as well as Nagorno-Karabakh and made lavish donations to the church after making a huge fortune there.
The bulk of his business assets estimated by the Forbes magazine at $4 billion are located in Russia. Although some Russian officials have expressed concern at his arrest, Moscow has so far refrained from openly calling for his release. Nevertheless, Pashinian’s political allies have accused him of plotting to overthrow the Armenian government on the Kremlin’s orders.
The tycoon remained defiant even after the government moved to seize his biggest business asset in Armenia: the national electric utility. The Armenian parliament approved a relevant bill on Wednesday as law-enforcement authorities raided the Yerevan offices of Karapetian’s Tashir Group conglomerate and arrested four company executives in what they called a criminal investigation into tax evasion and money laundering.
In his message to his protesting supporters, Karapetian said the “tiny clique” ruling Armenia must not get away with “attacking” Catholicos Garegin II and other senior clergymen.
“We will not allow that in our own way,” he said, essentially repeating the statement that landed him in jail.