A father who was killed by his three teenage daughters has been formally branded a paedophile who relentlessly sexually abused the girls.
The trio had been accused of murder but the detailed medical finding by Russian experts is now expected to see them all exonerated.
Mikhail Khachaturyan, 57, was stabbed to death with his own hunting knife at his apartment in Moscow in 2018.
For three years Krestina, Angelina and Maria Khachaturyan, then 19, 18 and 17, who admitted killing the ‘tyrant’, have feared being locked up on long sentences despite outlining rapes and ‘systematic torture’ at his hands.
Now the sisters can use the paedophile diagnosis to argue in court that all charges should be dropped in the high profile Moscow case.
‘Evil sex abuser’ Mikhail Khachaturyan (centre), 57, was stubbed to death with his own hunting knife in 2018 by his daughters (from left) Krestina, Maria, Angelina
Krestina and Angelina Khachaturyan, then 19 and 18, admitted to killing their father. Currently the two elder sisters are charged with murder
Maria Khachaturyan, the youngest of the girls. She faces time in a psychiatric hospital rather than jail after being judged temporarily insane at the moment her father was killed.
The post-mortem finding that their father was a child sex attacker with ‘a tendency to aggression’ who had ‘special sexual preferences aimed at his own daughters’.
He made repeated death threats to the girls if they failed to succumb to his demands, and the sisters believed he would kill them, say the findings from the Serbsky Institute of Psychological, Psychiatric and Medical Examinations.
Mari Davtyan, lawyer of Angelina, said: ‘The examinations confirmed the father’s violence against his daughters…
‘The experts found that each of the girls since 2014 suffered from abuse syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder – all of these conditions have a direct causal relationship to Khachaturian’s actions.’
The report found the abusive father manipulated his daughters with threats, violence, humiliation, as well as used ‘beatings, mocking them, and physical and sexual abuse’.
The girls had no other relatives who could stop the nightmare they faced, it was established.
The three will argue in court that the acted out of necessary self-defence.
Currently the two elder sisters are charged with murder and Maria faces time in a psychiatric hospital rather than jail after being judged temporarily insane at the moment her father was killed.
Lawyers for the three now hope they will all be totally cleared.
When they killed him as he slept they were in an ‘unstable’ psychological state and felt ‘hopeless’, fearing for their lives.
Other family members have accused the sisters of lying about their father’s sexual abuse, and seeking his money by killing him.
Olga Khalikova, lawyer for some relatives of the dead man, complained the new conclusions that he was a paedophile ‘were based solely on the testimony of the accused.’
It was impossible to establish this ‘on the words of the accused alone.’
The case has been seen as a litmus test in Russia for how the law deals with domestic sexual abuse with almost one million signing petitions calling for the sisters to go free.
The case has been seen as a litmus test in Russia for how the law deals with domestic sexual abuse with almost one million signing petitions calling for the sisters to go free. Pictured: Mikhail Khachaturyan with his eldest daughter Krestina
Mikhail with Angelina
Khachaturyan tortured the sisters and held them under his sway, say psychiatric experts at Russia’s respected Serbsky Centre. Pictured: Mikhail with Maria (left) and Angelina (right)
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 sexually pleasure him, saying that he had problems with his prostate and it would be a cure.’
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, she claimed.