Vartkes Yeghiayan
The Case of Misak Torlakian
Wednesday, January 17, 7 pm
Glendale Public Library
222 East Harvard Street
Glendale, CA 91205
FREE event cosponsored by the Friends of the Glendale Public Library, the
Glendale Bar Assn and the Armenian Bar Assn.
Refreshments.
³The defendant is acquitted at the expense of the state treasury. In
accordance with the decision of the jury, the defendant is not guilty of the
punishable act with which he has been charged.²
The charge was murder. The defendent, Misak Torlakian, shot Bibhub Khan
Javanshir outside the Per Palace Hotel in Constantinople (Istanbul) on July
18, 1921, yet he was found not guilty. The Case of Misak Torlakian, a new
book by Attorney Vartkes Yeghiayan and Ara Arabyan, reveals the trial
transcript concerning the Armenian Ottoman subject who was tried and
aquitted by a British Military Court on the charge of murdering the
Ex-Minister of the Interior of Azerbaijan.
The book provides an examination of the legal process of a British Military
Court after the Armenian genocide. History, theology, philosophy,
physiology, psychology and politics were used by the attorneys during the
trial. As a result, the landmark legal case became not just a murder trial,
but also a study of the political, social and economic strategies in the
Middle East and a discussion of the rivalries between Armenians, Azeris,
Turks, the British and Bolsheviks for control of oil.
The author, Glendale attorney Vartkes Yeghiayan, recently reached a $20
million settlement between new York Life Insurance and the heirs of Armenian
genocide victims and Armenian charitable organizations.