Sisters who stabbed their father to death in Russia are now facing a new investigation over whether they lied about killing him in self-defence.
A Russian court has ordered prosecutors to examine claims that Mikhail Khachaturyan, 57, subjected daughters Krestina, Angelina and Maria to years of physical and sexual abuse before they stabbed him to death in 2018.
It comes after Mikhail’s relatives accused the trio of inventing stories of abuse in a bid to avoid jail, claiming they slaughtered their father in cold blood to inherit his money and property.
The ruling is a blow to efforts by Krestina and Angelina, who were aged 19 and 18 when their father was killed, to avoid a murder charge and possibly 20 years in jail.
Maria has already been told she will not face the charge and will instead be sent to a psychiatric facility after a judge ruled she was rendered temporarily insane at the moment her two elder sisters attacked their father as he slept.
Mikhail, a known mafia boss, was stabbed through the heart with his own hunting knife and beaten in the head with a hammer during the fatal attack.
Both Krestina and Angelina have admitted taking part in the attack, while Maria said she was present but did not participate.
If investigators discover evidence that Mikhail had abused the girls then he could be posthumously prosecuted, lawyers said.
‘The court has granted the plaintiffs’ request to return the case to the prosecutor’s office until there is a final decision on a criminal case against Mikhail Khachaturyan,’ said Alexey Lipster, a lawyer for the sisters.
The sisters’ legal team want them treated as victims while Mikhail’s family have argued that the pair were lying about abuse, and should be jailed for murder.
The ruling is a blow to efforts by Krestina and Angelina (right) to avoid jail for their father’s murder. They claim self defence, but Mikhail’s relatives have accused them of lying
Naria (left) and Arsen Khachaturyan (right), Mikhail’s sister and nephew, say the girls invented fake claims of abuse and actually murdered their father in cold blood to inherit his wealth
Alexey Parshin, lawyer for Angelina, said the case against the sisters should be ‘dropped altogether’ because the sisters used ‘necessary self-defence’.
The latest twist in the long-running case follows six failed attempts to select a jury, often due to fears of Covid-19.
It has been seen as a test case in Russia for domestic sexual abuse with almost one million signing petitions for the sisters to go free.
The investigation earlier found they faced ‘physical and mental suffering…over a long period of time’.
Evidence showed the father threatened one of his ‘terrified’ daughters: ‘You will take the place of your mother.
‘I will marry you and you will give birth to my baby.’
An experts’ report said: ‘He ordered them to get undressed in front of him, saying that he wanted to ‘check’ them.
‘Then ordered them to perform a sex act on him, saying that he had problems with his prostate and it would be a cure.’
Krestina and Angelina are facing up to 20 years in prison if they are found guilty of Mikhail’s murder in the long-running case, but want the charge reduced to self-defence
Youngest sister Maria Khachaturyan will not face jail time and will instead be committed to a psychiatric hospital after a judge ruled her unfit to stand trial
He ‘abused and humiliated’ them ‘with various weapons’.
Angelina had blood streaming from her face after one attack by her father who had links both to senior Russian officials and underworld kings, say reports.
But the sisters’ aunt Naira Khachaturyan claimed the earlier official investigation found no evidence of sexual violence against the teenagers.
Medical tests showed two of the three were virgins, she claimed, while the third had a secret boyfriend.
‘They knew they could live the way they wanted if they got rid of their father,’she told a TV programme.
They wanted to ‘delete him from their lives’ and enjoy a ‘riotous lifestyle’.
The dead man’s nephew Arsen Khachaturyan claimed that one of the sisters had inflicted wounds on the other two which they later blamed on violence by their father.
‘Sexual violence, other violence, there was nothing of that,’ he told viewers.
‘The girls decided to kill their father, they conspired a while ago.’