The Appeals Court of Armenia today refused to hear the  suit brought by the Zhamanak newspaper seeking to overturn a lower court decision in a slander case launched by relatives of former President Robert Kocharyan.

The lower court’s ruling ordered the paper to issue a public retraction of various 2010 articles allegedly slandering the good name of Kocharyan’s wife Bella and son Sedrak.

The court also ordered the paper to pay 3 million AMD in compensatory damages.

Nikolay Baghdasaryan, the newspaper’s attorney, told Hetq that they are planning to take the matter to the Court of Cassation.