Authorities raid Electric Networks of Armenia and home of Samvel Karapetyan’s nephew
The Armenian authorities have raided the Electric Networks of Armenia, the country’s sole electricity distributor, and the home of detained billionaire Samvel Karapetyan’s nephew, Narek Karapetyan, who chairs the company, in an escalation of tensions between the government and Karapetyan.
The raids took place on Tuesday morning, according to CivilNet, which cited the Investigative Committee as describing the raids as ‘urgent investigative actions’ by the Main Department for the Investigation of Economic Crimes and Smuggling and the committee.
According to RFE/RL, the raid at ENA lasted for more than five hours, and Narek Karapetyan has stated that investigators seized 37 documents from the company.
Narek Karapetyan, whose home was also raided by the authorities, was present at the company during the search. He had told reporters that he expected to be arrested by the end of the search.
‘They will most likely arrest me, but I don't know yet what for, they will arrest me for one thing’, he said, adding that he had been notified of the searches in advance, according to RFE/RL.
As of publication, no reports have emerged indicating that Narek Karapetyan was detained.
A lawyer working on behalf of the Karapetyans, Aram Vardevanyan, described the raids as a ‘huge parade of illegal searches [ …] typical of legal terror’.
‘All of this has its component of political persecution, because everything started with the Facebook posts of 17 June, right up to the promise of retaliation’, Vardevanyan said, referring to posts made by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan the day Russian–Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan was detained on charges of making calls for the overthrow of the state.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
Prior to his arrest, the billionaire had made statements in an interview in support of the Armenian Church against the backdrop of its conflict with Pashinyan and the government.
In response to the remarks made by Samvel Karapetyan, Pashinyan insulted both the Church and the billionaire on Facebook, vowing to ‘deactivate them again. And forever’.
Following the arrest, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan vowed to ‘swiftly’ nationalise ENA, which is run by Samvel Karapetyan’s Tashir Group. On 2 July, The authorities raided Tashir Group’s main office in Yerevan as part of a criminal investigation into allegations of ‘aggravated money laundering, tax evasion, and failure to pay duties or other payments’.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
According to CivilNet, two people were arrested during the Tashir Group raid, with the Investigative Committee filing a petition to arrest two more and cases being launched against four others.
Tuesday’s raid of ENA followed the adoption of legislative amendments on 4 July that would virtually allow the state to nationalise the company.
Pashinyan had previously claimed the move was not related to Karapetyan’s pro-Church statements, and was instead rooted in public discontent with the company’s services and frequent power outages in Armenia, which Pashinyan alleged were intentionally used ‘to generate internal public discontent’.
However, critics of the recent legislative amendments warn that the nationalisation of ENA could have consequences on the country’s investment climate and foreign economic relations.
Yousef Bardouka
The ENA raid is part of a broader conflict between the ruling Civil Contract party and the Armenian Church, which in late June resulted in the arrest of at least 15 people on charges of seeking to violently overthrow the government with a coup d’état.
The authorities allege that the plot was spearheaded by the now-detained Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, a high-profile opposition figure who leads the anti-government Holy Struggle movement.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
