- Karlen Aslanian
A political ally of billionaire Samvel Karapetian was arrested on Tuesday on charges which his opposition movement described as politically motivated and linked to its weekend massive rally in Yerevan.
Gohar Ghumashian is a senior member of Karapetian’s Strong Armenia party widely expected to be the main opposition contender in Armenia’s upcoming parliamentary elections. The Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC) accused the young woman as well as another person of violating a legal ban on election-related benevolence.
The law-enforcement agency claimed that she handed out cash to one voter and promised “service on preferential terms” to another last month. It did not elaborate. In another statement issued later in the day, the ACC said it has asked a court to move Ghumashian to house arrest because she has three young children.
One of the children was born less than two months ago. Senior Strong Armenia figures emphasized this fact when they rushed to condemn Ghumashian’s arrest before the ACC revealed the charges levelled against her. They claimed that her “political persecution” is the result of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s knee-jerk reaction to a large crowd pulled by Karapetian’s party on Saturday.
“Another manifestation of Pashinian’s panic after the Big Rally,” Narek Karapetian, the tycoon’s nephew and right-hand man, said in a social media post. “Fearful of Samvel Karapetian, Pashinian sent law-enforcement officers to detain a breastfeeding mother of multiple children.”
“This is a consequence of our successful rally,” Gohar Meloyan, another senior Strong Armenian member, told reporters.
The rally held in Yerevan’s Liberty Square on Saturday featured Karapetian’s first video address to supporters since his arrest last June. He had issued only statements messages until then.
The 60-year-old tycoon, who was moved to house arrest in December, initially faced an accusation stemming from his criticism of Pashinian’s controversial attempts to depose Catholicos Garegin II, the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Investigators also charged him with tax evasion, fraud and money laundering after he announced in July plans to challenge Pashinian in the 2026 elections.
Karapetian’s trial is scheduled to start on Wednesday. His lawyers said they will ask the presiding judge to release him from house arrest.
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