Armenian court to rule on complaint against Bishop Mikael's arrest

Armenia's Court of Appeals plans to rule on Thursday on the defense's complaint against the arrest of Archbishop Mikael Ajapakhian, whom the authorities accuse of calling for the overthrow of the government, the bishop's team of lawyers reported.

The lawyers said that they appealed the arrest of Archbishop Ajapakhian to the Court of Appeals, and the case was transferred to Judge Vache Margaryan. The complaint was accepted for consideration on July 14. The judge decided to consider the case in writing. The issuance of the judicial act was scheduled for July 24.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the archbishop's lawyers said that the investigation into his criminal case had been completed. On Thursday, they plan to familiarize themselves with the materials, and then the investigator will hand over the indictment along with the case materials to the supervising prosecutor. The prosecutor must approve the indictment within seven days, after which he will send the criminal case materials to the court.

Upon receiving a criminal case, the judge must make a decision on accepting the case for proceedings and scheduling preliminary hearings within three days. The first court hearing with preliminary hearings will be scheduled within two weeks after the above decision is made.

The lawyers reported that during the preliminary hearings, the court will consider the issue of canceling, changing or extending the preventive measure.

The relationship between the Armenian authorities and the Armenian Apostolic Church has sharply deteriorated after Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan posted offensive posts about the Armenian Apostolic Church on Facebook* in late May, including using obscene language. He later proposed changing the procedure for electing the Catholicos of All Armenians and assigning the state a decisive role in this process.

Entrepreneur and philanthropist Samvel Karapetyan, who stood up for the church, was arrested, which caused outrage among numerous representatives of the diaspora around the world, who told RIA Novosti that political persecution of the church and its supporters is unacceptable. Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, who heads the Sacred Struggle movement, was also arrested. He was the leader of the protesters who demanded the resignation of the prime minister in 2024. At the end of June, the head of the Shirak Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Archbishop Mikael Ajapakhyan, was arrested in Yerevan. A case was opened against him and he was accused of calling for the seizure of power. The hierarch himself called these charges fabricated. Before Ajapakhyan's arrest, employees of the National Security Service of Armenia arrived at the residence of the Catholicos of All Armenians in Echmiadzin to detain the archbishop, but were met with resistance from believers and priests.

Reprinted from https://ria.ru/