YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Five former leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh were sentenced to life imprisonment and two others received 20-year jail terms on Thursday, February 5, at the end of their yearlong trial in Azerbai- jan condemned by Armenian human rights activists as a travesty of justice. A military court in Baku handed slightly shorter prison sentences to eight other Karabakh Armenians who have been tried together with them. The defendants include three former Karabakh presidents. Arayik Harutyu- nyan, Bako Sahakyan and Arkadi Ghu- kasyan. They as well as Ruben Vardanyan, an Armenian-born billionaire and phi- lanthropist, were captured by Azerbai- jan right after its September 2023 mili- tary offensive that forced Karabakh’s entire population to flee to Armenia and restored Azerbaijani control over the region. Vardanyan, who is standing a separate trial, is expected to be sen- tenced to life in prison later this month. The Azerbaijani court gave life sentences to Harutyunyan, Levon Mnatsakanyan, a former commander of Karabakh’s army, his ex-deputy Da- vit Manukyan as well as Davit Ishkh- anyan and Davit Babayan, who served as the unrecognized republic’s parlia- ment speaker and foreign minister re- spectively. Sahakyan and Ghukasyan were jailed for 20 years because of being over 65. All seven men have de- nied a long list of war crimes charges leveled against them. The Azerbaijani authorities have not allowed independent media or ob- servers to cover the trials. Vardanyan charged that they were accompanied by “egregious due process abuses” when he went on hunger strike in pris- on a year ago. Siranush Sahakyan, a Yerevan- based lawyer representing Armenian prisoners in the European Court of Hu- man Rights, said that with its verdict the Azerbaijani court simply rubber- stamped decisions made by Azerbai- jani President Ilham Aliyev. “These verdicts cannot practically hinder or prevent the repatriation of the Armenians [held in Azerbaijan] because this process has never been legal,” Sahakyan told RFE/RL’s Arme- nian Service. “The Azerbaijani courts have shown that this issue is highly po- litical and they are incapable of ensur- ing a fair trial.” The Armenian government has not reacted yet to the prison sentences which came the day after Prime Min- ister Nikol Pashinyan and Aliyev held fresh talks in the United Arab Emirates. By contrast, the Armenian Apostolic Church was quick to condemn them and pledge to continue campaigning for the release of all Armenian prison- ers held in Azerbaijan. “Holy Etchmiadzin expresses its support to the Artsakh state figures held hostage, prisoners of war and their families,” read a statement released by the church’s Mother See. Aliyev and Pashinyan again claimed to have established peace be- tween Armenia and Azerbaijan when they received a UAE peace prize following their talks in Abu Dhabi. Gegham Manukyan, an Armenian op- position lawmaker and brother of the jailed Karabakh General Davit Ma- nukyan, scoffed at the event. “There is no other country in the world that has been humiliated in this way and whose government is burying its head in the sand as if everything is alright,” said Manukyan. Pashinyan’s government waited for weeks before criticizing the “mock trials” of the former Karabakh lead- ers a year ago. The Armenian premier claimed in January 2025 that an ex- plicit condemnation would only harm the defendants. His critics insisted that he is simply afraid of angering Baku. They have since continued to ac- cuse Yerevan of doing little to secure the release of these and other Arme- nian prisoners. The total number of prisoners currently stands at 19. Prospects for their release anytime soon remained uncertain even after the initialization of an Armenian-Azerbai- jani peace treaty in Washington last August. Neither the treaty nor a sepa- rate declaration signed by Aliyev and Pashinyan at the White House com- mits Baku to freeing them.