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Alexei Parshin expressed hope that the investigation will confirm the prior decision of prosecutors to close the case and not allow two older sisters to sit behind bars for 20 years.
The activists allege that the girls were forced to kill their father to save their own lives and point to the lack of legal protection in Russia for victims of domestic violence.
In July 2018, Krestina, Angelina and Maria Khachaturian fatally robbed their father Mikhail from a family home in Moscow. They claimed that he raped them, raped them and prevented them from attending school.
In January 2020, prosecutors ordered the case closed and said investigators did not consider the father’s “systematic violence” even though they found evidence of bodily harm.
Investigators refused to close the case and she found herself paralyzed.
Parsin told the AFP news agency on Tuesday that the Serious Crimes Investigation Commission had informed him after launching an investigation on March 10 into whether the father had actually abused his daughters.
“We hope that at the end of it, his trial ends and it is proven that his actions were in self-defense,” Angelina’s attorney said.
However, Olga Chalikova, a lawyer for the relatives of the late Mikhail, who initiated the investigation, said that the purpose of the investigation was to show that he had not actually committed violence against the daughters and to return the case to court to convict the daughters. . daughters.
“If it is proven that there was no sexual exploitation, then the motive for killing them is lost and their defenses collapse like a house of cards,” he told AFP.
“Investigators will then return the case to prosecutors,” the lawyer added.
The sisters were 19, 18 and 17 years old at the time of the murder. Two old men, Krestina and Angelina, face up to 20 years in prison.
When it is established that Maria was unaware of the older sisters’ actions, her case is heard separately, behind closed doors.
The prosecutors’ decision last year to close the case was seen as a major victory for Russian civil society.
