After a 33-month trial Nairy Hunanyan and five others were sentenced to life in prison.

The "October 27" trial has ended nearly three years after it began, and more than four years since the killings in parliament for which seven defendants have been tried.

And it has ended with no surprise for a case in which the accused were shown on international television killing eight members of government and wounding four.

Brothers Nairy and Karen Hunanyan, their uncle Vram Galstyan, Edward Grigoryan, Derenik Bejanyan and Ashot Kniazyan were sentenced to life in prison. Hamlet Stepanyan was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Judge Samvel Uzunyan read the verdict in a resolute and unyielding voice, drowning out objections from Nairy Hunanyan, the leader of the terrorists, for whom the 33-month trial became a stage for his revolutionary rhetoric and self-aggrandizement.

A full hall at Nork Marash court hardly even reacted to the verdict. And, far from the circus atmosphere that prevailed when the trial opened on ????, no one waited outside to protest or merely to be part of the scene.

The only surprise in Tuesday's verdict was the sentencing of Kniazyan. Prosecutors had asked for 15 years for Kniazyan, who, like driver Stepanyan, did not enter the parliament building on the day of the killings. (Usually the court in Armenia gives less than the prosecution recommends in sentencing.)

Representatives DO YOU MEAN ATTORNEYS for neither slain Speaker of Parliament Karen Demirchyan nor for slain Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan were present to hear the verdict.

Oppositional political parties have used the trial as a forum for anti-government propagandizing, claiming throughout that the prosecution has failed to produce the perpetrators and alleging that President Robert Kocharyan's allies had a role in the conspiracy.

A main oppositional party, Republic, put out an announcement Monday announcing its boycott of the verdict reading and calling the trial a farce.

"Instead of detecting the crime committed on October 27, the court has performed the order of the regime and sheltered essential circumstances of the case," the statement read.

The opposition is also unhappy with the timing of the verdict. On November 5, the National Assembly passed an amendment to the criminal code that abolishes right to parole in such cases. The legislation was sent to the President on November 7. The President received it on November 10 but did not sign it until November 26. The law cannot take effect until 10 days after it is published, meaning that Hunanyan, et.al. will be eligible for parole in 20 years.

"If the law had been signed immediately after the President received it, during one or two days, then the law would have come into force before November 25 at the latest," says the secretary of the Justice bloc, Victor Dalakyan. "It wasn't difficult at all to read through the half-page long law quickly and sign it. It is obvious that (the delay) was done purposely."

Judge Uzunyan read the verdict drowning out any objections from defendants.

Minister of Transport and Communication Andranik Manukyan was severely wounded in the attack on Parliament.

Manukyan disavows any connection between Kocharyan and the terrorist act. He says that the trial was politicized, and that the defendants should have received death by shooting. (During the course of the trial, the death penalty has been abolished in Armenia in compliance with membership in the Council of Europe.)

Karen Demirchyan's son, Stepan, who lost a runoff to Kocharyan in last spring's presidential elections said the trial "has been dictated since the beginning. The court performed the order and today it is a final stage of this process."

At an opposition-organized meeting held a week before the verdict, Aram Sargsyan, brother of Vazgen Sargsyan and a leader of the Republic party said he was willing to put aside his feelings if Kocharyan would sit with him and discuss the October 27 killings.

"If Robert Kocharyan can prove that he has no relation to the October 27 incident then I am ready to beg publicly his pardon," Sargsyan said.

Pro-government Dashnak party member and Deputy Speaker of Parliament Vahan Hovhannisyan is satisfied with the verdict.

"We found those who committed the murder and punishment will be imposed upon them. According to the Legislation of the Republic of Armenia it is the most severe penalty that can be applied."

"The court added nothing new to what we knew. Hunanyan's group was sentenced for the crime they committed and society knows about them, however, court didn't gave answers to question, who were the organizers of the crime," said Samvel Sargsyan, a resident of Yerevan who attended the hearing.

All defendants are expected to appeal the verdict within the 15-day period allowed for appeal.