Tuesday, Appeals Court Upholds Guilty Verdict Against Babayan . Karlen Aslanian Armenia - Samvel Babayan, a retired army general critical of the government, attends an appeals court hearing in Yerevan, 26 February 2018. Armenia's Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld a six-year prison sentence handed down to Samvel Babayan, a retired army general prosecuted on charges of illegal arms acquisition and money laundering which he strongly denies. It also rejected the appeals of two other suspects in the high-profile case who were sentenced by a district court in Yerevan to three and two years in prison in November. Babayan was arrested in March 2017 after Armenia's National Security Service (NSS) claimed to have confiscated a surface-to-air rocket system. The arrest came about two weeks before Armenia's last parliamentary elections. Babayan was unofficially affiliated with the ORO alliance led by former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian and two other opposition politicians. ORO condemned the criminal case as politically motivated. Babayan has since repeatedly denied prosecutors' claims that he promised to pay other defendants, notably his longtime associate Sanasar Gabrielian, $50,000 for the delivery of the shoulder-fired Igla rocket. Gabrielian, who received the three-year prison sentence, insisted during their trial that it was he who commissioned the confiscated Igla. He claimed that he wanted to donate it to Nagorno-Karabakh's army. Both defendants appealed against the guilty verdict handed down by the lower court. They and the third suspect, Armen Poghosian, said they must be acquitted on all counts. Armenia - The Court of Appeals hands down a verdict on the appeals of Samvel Babayan and two other men accused of illegal arms acquisition, . "This is a fabricated case," Babayan told the Court of Appeals on Monday. He reiterated that he only advised Gabrielian to hoard the sophisticated weapon in a remote Karabakh village and then confidentially tip off a military official in Stepanakert. A trial prosecutor insisted, for his part, that the investigators have substantiated their accusations levelled against Babayan and the other defendants. Purported evidence presented by them includes a short segment of a wiretapped telephone conversation between Babayan and Gabrielian. Babayan said that his secretly recorded remarks were "taken out of context." He earlier petitioned the court to have the prosecutors publicize full audio of the phone call. The court refused to do that. Babayan, 52, led Karabakh's Armenian-backed army from 1993-1999 and was widely regarded as the unrecognized republic's most powerful man at that time. He was arrested in 2000 and subsequently sentenced to 14 years in prison for allegedly masterminding a botched attempt on the life of the then Karabakh president, Arkady Ghukasian. He was set free in 2004. Babayan criticized the current authorities in Yerevan and Stepanakert after returning to Armenia in May 2016 from Russia where he lived for five years. Armenian Parliament To Debate 2008 Crackdown On Opposition . Tatevik Lazarian Armenia - A man walks past burned cars on a street in Yerevan where security forces clashed with opposition protesters, 2 March 2008. The National Assembly agreed on Tuesday to debate an opposition-drafted resolution condemning the use of lethal force against opposition protesters in Yerevan in the wake of Armenia's disputed 2008 presidential election. The parliamentary resolution put forward by the opposition Yelk says that supporters of opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian protested against "the falsification" of the results of the election that formalized the handover of power from outgoing President Robert Kocharian to Serzh Sarkisian. It describes as "crude and illegal" the forcible dispersal of those protests on March 1-2 2008 which left ten people dead. The statement demands that law-enforcement authorities at last identify and prosecute those responsible for the killings. The parliament unanimously voted to include the draft resolution on its agenda even though its standing committee on legal affairs gave a formal negative assessment of the document last week. Gevorg Kostanian, the incoming committee chairman affiliated with the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), criticized the Yelk motion. Armenia - Opposition leader Nikol Pashinian addresses protesters that barricaded themselves in central Yerevan, 1 March 2008. Addressing fellow lawmakers before Tuesday's vote, Yelk's parliamentary leader, Nikol Pashinian, again blamed the authorities for what was the worst street violence in Armenia's history. "Ten years ago the police illegally used force against citizens fighting protesting against the falsification of the presidential elections, as a result of which ten people were killed in the center of Yerevan," he said. "Serzh Sarkisian managed to seize power only thanks to those killings," charged the outspoken politician who played a major role in Ter-Petrosian's 2007-2008 opposition movement. HHK lawmakers rejected such claims during parliamentary hearings on the unrest that were chaired by Pashinian earlier this week. Significantly, one of those lawmakers, Samvel Nikoyan, blamed not only Ter-Petrosian but also Kocharian for the bloodshed. Nikoyan disputed Kocharian's March 2008 claim that some of the protesters shot at security forces. Armenia - Armenian army soldiers are deployed on a street in Yerevan where security forces clashed with opposition protesters, 2 March 2008. Ter-Petrosian, who had served as Armenia's first president from 1991-1998, was the main opposition candidate in the February 2008 presidential ballot. He rejected as fraudulent official vote results that gave victory to Sarkisian. Many Ter-Petrosian supporters took to the streets to demand a re-run of the vote. Thousands of them barricaded themselves in downtown Yerevan on March 1, 2008 after riot police broke up nonstop demonstrations organized by Ter-Petrosian and his allies in the city's Liberty Square. Eight protesters and two police servicemen were killed as security forces tried to forcibly end that protest as well. Ter-Petrosian urged his supporters to disperse early on March 2, 2008 shortly after Kocharian declared a state of emergency and ordered Armenian army units into the capital. Dozens of opposition figures, including Pashinian, were subsequently arrested and prosecuted. The parliamentary statement proposed by Yelk also demands that Armenian prosecutors review those "fabricated" criminal cases. New Body To Oversee Armenian Judiciary . Astghik Bedevian Armenia - A district court building in Yerevan, 27Jun2017. The Armenian parliament will elect on Wednesday five of the ten members of a new and powerful body tasked with overseeing Armenia's courts. The remaining members of the Supreme Judicial Council will be chosen by the country's judges who took the bench at least ten years ago. The council is being set up in accordance with sweeping constitutional changes enacted in 2015. According to one of those amendments, its main mission is to "guarantee the independence of the courts and the judges." The council will nominate virtually all new judges that will be appointed by the Armenian president and the National Assembly. It is also empowered to take disciplinary action against judges or have them terminated altogether. The parliament discussed on Tuesday the five members of the council proposed by the ruling Republican Party (HHK) and its junior coalition partner, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun). Lawmakers will vote for or against them in secret ballot. The candidates, among them Gagik Harutiunian, the outgoing chairman of Armenia's Constitutional Court, will have to be backed by at least 63 members of the 105-seat parliament in order to get elected to the judicial body. The HHK and Dashnaktsutyun control 65 parliament seats. The two other political groups represented in the legislature chose not to nominate any candidates. Instead, deputies representing the opposition Yelk bloc put tough questions to the five candidates on the parliament floor. In particular, Harutiunian was asked about the existence of political prisoners and opposition allegations of electoral fraud that have always been dismissed by the Constitutional Court. "I won't confirm or deny [the existence of political prisoners] for the following reason: I have not looked into any criminal case of this kind," said Harutiunian. Yelk's parliamentary leader, Nikol Pashinian, hit out at the long-serving Constitutional Court chief after the question-and-answer session. "The guy was vice-president, prime minister and Constitutional Court chairman # but doesn't know if there have been political prisoners in Armenia," he said. "This is his relationship to the truth." Pashinian also attacked another candidate, former Justice Minister Gevorg Danielian. He said that Armenian jails were "full of political prisoners" during Danielian's tenure. HHK parliamentarians rejected the criticism. "Nobody can call into question their [professional] qualities that are needed for their tenure at the Supreme Judicial Council," one of them, former Prosecutor-General Gevorg Kostanian, said during the debate. Incidentally, another candidate nominated by the ruling party, Liparit Melikjanian, ran for the parliament on the Yelk ticket as recently as one year ago. He accused the Armenian authorities of pursuing "anti-national policies" during the election campaign. "I may sympathize with the Yelk bloc in terms of political views but I think that my political career is over now," Melikjanian said on Tuesday. Armenian courts have long been notorious for their lack of independence from the executive branch. They are still mistrusted by many citizens despite having undergone frequent structural changes in the last two decades. Corruption among judges is thought to be another serious problem. Sarkisian Encouraged By Faster Economic Growth Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian meets with Prime Minister Karen Karapetian and other senior officials in Yerevan, . President Serzh Sarkisian hailed on Tuesday robust economic growth recorded in Armenia last year, while acknowledging that it did not have a serious impact on living standards. Sarkisian said the Armenian economy expanded by at least 7.4 percent in 2017 as het met with Prime Minister Karen Karapetian and other senior officials to discuss the socioeconomic situation in the country. "This is certainly a good indicator," he said. "But we must also bear in mind that one year of strong economic growth cannot have an impact on broad sections of our society." The rapid growth, the president went on, should continue unabated for two or three more years before its positive effects can be felt by most Armenians. He noted in that regard that the Armenian government achieved "good economic indicators" in January as well. The Finance Ministry made a more modest growth projection last month: 6.7 percent. It had originally forecast a 3.2 percent growth rate. It revised that target upwards to 4.3 percent in September. Armenia's National Statistical Service (NSS) has yet to report an official growth figure for 2017. So far it has released only detailed separate data on the performance of different sectors of the economy. In particular, Armenian industrial output rose by over 12 percent, according to the NSS. In its five-year policy program approved by the parliament last June, Karapetian's cabinet pledged to ensure that the domestic economy grows by around 5 percent annually. Sarkisian announced on Tuesday that his administration will finalize "within several weeks" a 12-year "strategy for Armenia's socioeconomic development." A statement on the meeting released by the presidential press service gave no details of that strategy. Sarkisian will complete his second and final presidential term on April 9. He is widely expected to become prime minister and thus extend his decade-long rule. Press Review "Zhoghovurd" reports that the Armenian government is determined to complete a controversial reform of the national pension system that triggered street demonstrations in Yerevan in 2014. It will become mandatory in July for all Armenian workers self-employed individuals born after 1973. The paper is critical of the new pension system, saying that it should not be introduced in Armenia because average wages there are quite low. It says that a higher pension tax envisaged by the reform will only cut those wages in real terms. "Zhamanak" says that hardly anyone was surprised by Gagik Tsarukian's decision to endorse President Serzh Sarkisian's pick for the next head of state, former Prime Minister Armen Sarkissian. The paper links this decision to what it sees as a "profound transformation of the government system in Armenia." Tsarukian is keen to adapt to this ongoing change, it says. "Building a party and making it a success in Armenia is a very difficult task," writes "Hraparak." "Especially if that party does not make use of government resources its chances of electoral success become slim # and the likelihood of splits within it greatly increases. That explains why the history of non-governing parties in Armenia has been one of volatility and upheavals. Such parties fail to achieve important results because financial resources and public platforms mainly serve pro-government forces." Karapet Rubinian, an opposition figure who has served as deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament in the past, tells "Aravot" that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's latest statements on "historic Azerbaijani lands" in Armenia may be a prelude to renewed fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh. Rubinian also speculates that Aliyev's decision to bring Azerbaijan's next presidential election forward by six months is apparently connected with the ongoing political transition in Armenia. (Tigran Avetisian) Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2018 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org