Former commander of the Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) Defense Army Samvel Babayan on Tuesday, November 28 was sentenced to six years in prison for smuggling Igla air defense missile systems.

The prosecution had demanded a 7-year term for the former Karabakh military official.

Babayan is accused of "money laundering" and "arms smuggling".

He was arrested in March 2017 in the framework of a criminal case instituted on the fact of contraband import of Igla systems from Georgia to Armenia.

In the framework of the same criminal case, a number of Babayan's accomplices were also convicted - Sanasar Gabrielyan was sentenced to three years, Armen Pogosyan to two years of prison, and a trial period of three years was imposed on Andranik Kocharyan, Karen Kocharyan, Zhora Zakaryan, David Harutyunyan. None of them pleaded guilty.