Separate case launched against slain father of Khachaturyan sisters

The Russian Investigative Committee has singled out into a separate criminal case charges of sexual abuse against Mikhail Khachaturyan, believed to have been killed by his three teenage daughters last year, a police source told TASS on Thursday.

"An investigative group of the Russian Investigative Committee singled out files pointing to Mikhail Khachaturyan’s [purported] crimes against his daughters into a separate case. According to investigators, his actions should fall under articles 117, 132 and 133 of the Russian Criminal Code (torture, violent sexual actions, compulsion to perform sexual actions)," the source said.

When contacted by TASS, attorney Alexey Liptser, who defends Khachaturyan’s oldest daughter Kristina, confirmed this information.

Investigators charged the three Khachaturian sisters with killing their 57-year-old father shortly after his body with multiple stab wounds to the neck and chest was found in an apartment in Moscow on July 27, 2018. When questioned, the young women pled guilty and explained that they had reasons for hostility towards their father, because he abused them mentally and physically for a lengthy period of time.

On August 2, Moscow’s Ostankino court arrested the three sisters on murder charges. A post-mortem psychological and psychiatric evaluation revealed that Mikhail Khachaturyan had suffered from a personality disorder. Experts also established that his oldest daughter had developed a mental disorder as a result of being sexually harassed and abused by her father.

On September 27, Moscow’s Basmanny Court ruled to release the sisters from a pretrial detention facility, choosing a ban on taking certain actions as a measure of pretrial restraint for them.

This measure is similar to house arrest, but the sisters are allowed to leave the house during the day and communicate with close relatives. The sisters will live in different apartments and will not have any contact with each other. They are also banned from using communication devices and the Internet, as well as from talking to the media.