Arsen Torosyan, chairman of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Health Care, wrote on Facebook that listing everyone who recently defended what he calls “traitorous clergy” reveals a clear picture of Armenia’s former pre-2018 mafia clan.

“Day by day it’s becoming more obvious that the looting and oppression happened with the ‘blessing’ of those traitorous servants. They were part of that clan, and now they’re all howling (apologies for the word, I couldn’t find a better one) to regain what they’ve lost—the chance to ruthlessly loot and exploit our country and people,” he stated.

Torosyan added that this all operated under northern high-level patronage, evidence of which continues to surface. “For example, today Russian state media spread some absurd news about diamond theft and tied it to our faction MP Khachatur Sukiasyan,” he wrote.

On the night of June 18, Samvel Karapetyan left his Yerevan residence with law enforcement. Later it was announced he had been questioned by the Investigative Committee and subsequently detained for two months on charges of making public calls to seize government authority.

A few hours earlier, Karapetyan had issued a strong statement supporting the Armenian Apostolic Church, saying: “I stand with our church and our people. No matter how they try to defame it—whatever power grid they run—I don’t care about them or their electricity network. Everything will be fine. The people will speak, and they will understand their mistake.”

In response, Prime Minister Pashinyan posted: “Why have the promiscuous ‘clergy’ and their promiscuous ‘benefactors’ become active again? Never mind—we’ll silence them once more. This time, permanently.” He later added that the power grid (Electric Networks of Armenia) should be rapidly nationalized.