Los Angeles Times
Sept 1 2006
Killer of Turkish Diplomat in Los Angeles in 1982 Loses Parole Bid
>From the Associated Press
September 1, 2006
A man convicted for the 1982 murder of a Turkish diplomat in Westwood
was denied parole Thursday.
Harry Sassounian, 43, will not be eligible for parole again until
2010, said Jane Robison, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County
district attorney’s office.
Sassounian’s attorney, Mark Geragos, said he didn’t view Thursday’s
decision as a setback, arguing that it is rare for parole to be
granted on the first try.
"The parole commissioners were very complimentary of his chances next
time around," Geragos said in a telephone interview.
Turkish Consul General Kemal Arikan was killed Jan. 28, 1982, while
stopped at a traffic signal. Sassounian was 19 at the time. A second
gunman was never caught.
In 2000, a federal appeals court upheld Sassounian’s murder
conviction but overturned the special-circumstance conviction, which
alleged that Arikan was killed because of his nationality.
A jail informant testified that Sassounian told him he killed the
54-year-old diplomat as revenge for the deaths of about 1.5 million
Armenians at the hands of Turks late in the 19th century and early in
the 20th century.
The reversal threw out Sassounian’s sentence of life in prison
without parole.
Prosecutors later agreed to drop plans to retry Sassounian on the
special-circumstance allegation, allowing him a chance at parole in
exchange for his denouncing of terrorism.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
