On the afternoon of July 27, 2018, Mikhail Khachaturan (57) came home to the apartment he shared with his three teenage daughters in a block of flats along the huge ring road around Moscow.
As so many times before, he scolded his daughters, this time for messing around in the apartment.
As so many times before, he became violent, this time with pepper spray.
As so many times before, he sat down in the easy chair afterwards, this time for the last time.
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Stitched over 30 times
Some time later, one of the sisters called the police. She said her name was Angelina, and through tears she explained that her father Mikhail had attacked her while he was drunk.
She acted in self-defense, she said, and asked police to come.
Shortly afterwards, not only Angelina (18) was arrested, but also sisters Marija (17) and Krestina (19).
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Changed explanation
In questioning by police, Angelina’s explanation cracked.
It was not her father who attacked her, but she and Marija who had attacked him, as he lay in the easy chair and slept.
Krestina was lying in the room, unconscious after an asthmatic attack triggered by the pepper spray her father had used against her, when she heard the screams, the sisters said.
Krestina thought her father had attacked the sisters again, and ran into the living room and used the pepper spray on her father. Then she realized what was really happening.
While Krestina lay in the room, Marija and Angelina decided that enough was enough.
The father not only used violence against the sisters, he tortured them and sexually abused them for many, many years, the sisters explained to the police, and insisted:
They acted in self-defense.
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Charged with premeditated murder
For weeks and months after that afternoon in July 2018, the case became the subject of massive media coverage – not just in Russia, but worldwide.
In recent years, Russia has decriminalized certain forms of domestic violence, and the case of the three teenage sisters created a great deal of public debate.
The sisters were imprisoned and charged with conspiring to commit premeditated murder against their father.
The case divided not only the Khachaturian family, but the whole of Russia. Mikhail Khachaturian’s sisters reached out to their nieces, describing them as malicious and manipulative. according to The Guardian, and received support from part of Russian society.
The sisters’ mother and women activists all over Russia took to the streets – and to the streets.
Large demonstrations were organized in support of the sisters and against the prosecution.
After massive pressure, the sisters were eventually released, but the criminal case against them is still upheld, and the trial against them has been postponed several times.
The activists, sisters and sisters’ lawyers have since the charge and the indictment became clear, criticized the prosecution for not seeing any mitigating circumstances in the case.
This means that the case now stands at an important crossroads.
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“Important breakthrough”
Angelina Khachaturian’s lawyer, Alexei Parshin, believes that the fact that the sisters are considered offended in the prosecution’s criminal case against the father, should also be mitigating in a possible trial.
He hopes that the prosecution, on the basis of this, will close the case against the sisters.
– We believe that they had no other choice. Their whole life was hell. They cannot be compared to healthy, calm and balanced people. The girls developed severe mental disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder, said Parshin about the sisters last year.
Krestina Khachaturyan’s lawyer, Alexei Lipster, is of the same opinion, and believes it proves that the sisters acted in self-defense, according to Tass.
Now the case against the father will be processed by the judiciary before the courts possibly take up the case against the sisters, reports the Russian website Otkritie Media.
It describes women’s rights activist Darya Serenko as a “very important breakthrough”, according to the English-language Russian newspaperMoscow Times.
