YEREVAN. Nov 28 (Interfax) - Samvel Babayan, former commander of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) Defense Army, was sentenced to six years in prison on Tuesday.
Yerevan judge Arshak Vardanyan proclaimed the sentence, an Interfax correspondent reported from the courtroom.
Babayan was charged with money laundering and arms contraband.
He was arrested in March 2017 on counts of smuggling an Igla MANPADS from Georgia to Armenia.
The court also issued conviction with respect to Babayan's accomplices. Sanasar Gabrielyan will spend three years in a penitentiary, and Armen Pogosyan will be incarcerated for two years. A three-year suspended sentence was handed down for Andranik Kocharyan, Karen Kocharyan, Zhora Zakaryan, and David Arutyunyan.
All of them pleaded not guilty.
After the sentence was pronounced, Babayan told the press that it was a setup.
The Armenian press said earlier that the smuggled Igla MANPADS was due to down a helicopter carrying high-ranking Armenian officials. The defendants maintain that they acquired the weapon for the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic's needs.