Author: Babajanian Karo

D.C. POLICE REVIVE CASE OF SCHOLAR KILLED IN ’98
June Q. Wu

Washington Post
wuj@washpost.com
July 26, 2011

Everything in San Francisco was packed and ready to go. The newlyweds
had just found a charming Woodley Park apartment where they would
start a life together in Washington.

It was the summer of 1998 and Christine Mirzayan, 28, was living in
Georgetown until her husband joined her that fall. He called her a
few hours before she went to a Saturday dinner with friends. It was
the last time they would talk.

That night, Aug. 1, 1998, Mirzayan was walking home when she was
dragged into the woods near Canal Road NW. A man heard her scream and
called out to her, asking whether she was okay. She did not respond.

Her body was found the next day. Police said she had been sexually
assaulted and died from a blow to the head.

Months passed without an arrest, and then years.

Now, police are renewing their efforts to find her killer. Authorities
recently announced that DNA evidence links Mirzayan’s slaying to eight
sexual assaults in Montgomery County from 1991 to 1998. In coming
weeks, D.C. police said, they will launch a Web site dedicated to
the case in the hope that it will bring in new tips.

“There are only a few options: One, he’s dead. Two, he’s incarcerated
on something they don’t take DNA for,” said Capt. Michael Farish of
the D.C. police’s homicide unit. “I don’t foresee someone committing
a progressively violent string of attacks and saying, ‘I’ll never do
this again.’ ”

Mirzayan’s husband at the time, David Hackos, said he and her family
never dwelt on the fact that there has not been an arrest.

“To me, Christine was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Hackos
said. “I never really felt this need to get revenge. I felt there’s
no amount of revenge that could possibly bring back Christine.”

Mirzayan had just finished her PhD at the University of California
at San Francisco when she moved to the District for a fellowship.

Friends recalled Mirzayan’s passion for good wine and food, smooth jazz
(especially Charles Mingus) and philosophy. Existentialist thought
especially aroused her interest – she had studied Albert Camus during
her undergraduate years at Yale – and Hackos said she believed that
people are responsible for giving their lives meaning and that they
should live life passionately and fully or commit suicide.

So she chose life.

Born in Tehran, Mirzayan and her parents, of Armenian descent, moved
to Newport Beach, Calif., when she was 9 years old. Her older sister,
Caroline, pursued a career in science, and Mirzayan followed. She
graduated from Yale in 1991 with a degree in molecular, cellular
and developmental biology and earned a PhD in biochemistry from UCSF
in 1998.

Former UCSF professors described her as an idealistic student with
a promising future in shaping national science and technology policy.

Marc Tessier-Lavigne, now president of Rockefeller University in New
York City, remembered Mirzayan’s fascination with how nerve cells
behave at the molecular level.

“She was very, very inquisitive,” said Tessier-Lavigne, her thesis
adviser. “She cared about science; she cared about people. I close
my eyes, I hear her laugh, I see her smile, I see her interest –
she just loved to learn about everything.”

Like most graduate students, Mirzayan spent long hours in the lab. Her
late afternoon coffee cravings became a tradition, and the crew would
take a break to debate free will vs. determinism or plan a marathon
viewing of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “The Three Colors Trilogy.”

“She would walk around in the lab and say, ‘Coffee? Coffee?’ ” said
Michael Galko, who worked alongside Mirzayan. “She never let a day
go by where she didn’t corner you and talk to you for a bit.”

Lab mates remember how happy Mirzayan was when she met Hackos, who
was the quieter of the pair.

“I think she was drawn to introverts,” said Galko, now an assistant
professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. “She
felt like she had to figure you out.”

Hackos, also a UCSF graduate student, was working late in the library
in spring 1992 when he ran into Mirzayan at the copy machine. Small
talk led to an invitation to her lab’s ballroom dance outing, which,
in turn, led to a relationship.

They married in spring 1997, having settled into an apartment near
campus. Each morning, Mirzayan would take her husband’s hand and
recite bits of T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

“Let us go then, you and I,/ When the evening is spread out against
the sky,” she would say before dragging him to the neighborhood
coffee shop.

Mirzayan left for the District in the summer of 1998 for a science
and technology policy fellowship, now named in her memory, at the
National Academy of Sciences. She already had accepted a congressional
fellowship for the fall, and Hackos had a postdoctoral position at
the National Institutes of Health lined up for September.

The morning after Mirzayan was killed, her mother called Hackos,
worried that her daughter hadn’t made her usual Sunday morning
phone call.

Calls to her Georgetown apartment went unanswered, and Hackos booked
the first flight to Washington the next day. When the plane’s wheels
hit the tarmac, he heard his name paged. His heart sank.

D.C. police met Hackos at the gate.

The sexual assaults started in Montgomery’s North Potomac area in
May 1991. By 1998, eight women – ranging in age from 18 to about 50 –
had been attacked by the same man, some in their homes, some outside,
police said.

Had it not been for genetic evidence, police would not have connected
the cases, said Montgomery Detective Joe Mudano, one of the original
investigators.

The rapist covered the women’s faces, Mudano said, so they never got
a good look at him.

Police say they think the same man killed Mirzayan.

A witness who saw a man leave the woods minutes after someone else
heard Mirzayan scream helped a police artist make a composite sketch.

An artist will revise it for the Web site, aging the likeness.

In the first years after his wife’s death, Hackos lived in the
District, visiting the restaurants in Dupont Circle that she loved,
remembering the week they spent together finding an apartment.

“Somehow, I felt that that was the last place I saw her, that she was
still there in some way,” Hackos said. “I wanted to be close to her,
I guess.”

Hackos eventually moved back to the Bay area. He remarried in August
2006 and lives in San Francisco with his wife, pianist Lauren Cony,
and 3-year-old son, Dylan.

Several months ago, D.C. police contacted Hackos to update him on
the search for Mirzayan’s killer.

“There was nothing we could do. She just disappeared one day. That’s
it,” Hackos said. “People wrote letters and poems and made a scrapbook
with a bunch of photos. We all just felt helpless and were seeking
our way of finding closure.”

THE ROAD TO AMERICA
Terri Hackett

Chronicle-Herald

July 26, 2011
Missouri

David Doctorian knew God was leading him, he just didn’t know where

Macon, Mo – Seeing the big picture of ones life is not generally
visible until we have aged, or enough time passes and circumstances
become more clear. David Doctorian of Macon, now understands more
about why situations happened in his life, and feels God was totally
in control the entire time. With such a fascinating life, that was
full of twists and turns, David’s family felt he needed to write a
book. So after giving it some thought and prayer…he did.

David was born to Armenian parents who became orphans when they were
young. His grandparents refused to convert to the Islamic religion and
were executed for their faith during the Armenian Genocide. David’s
father, Paul, was rounded up with other women and children of the
village and forced to walk through the Syrian Desert. A Turkish
soldier recognized him as the son of a doctor who had cared for his
own family and he was pulled from the group. After one bad situation
to another he was taken to an orphanage in Beirut, Lebanon. David’s
mother experienced a similar story, also being rescued by a Turkish
soldier and taken to the same orphanage as his father. There is where
they met, grew up together and later married and lived in Beirut. They
later moved to Tyre, along the Mediterranean Coast. The couple had
four boys and two daughters.

In David’s book entitled, “My Life Journey – From the Streets of
Jerusalem to the Halls of the Missouri Senate,” he tells about
having to drop out of school due to the lack of money, having an
opportunity to go back to school thanks to a gentlemen that paid his
way to the many experiences he had coming to America, and his life
in a free country.

He expresses numerous times how blessed he feels living in America,
and the opportunities that are available for anyone.

One of his greatest accomplishments he says is getting his entire
family to America.

He has acquired several college degrees, worked in politics for 14
years, taught high school and college classes, and witnessed his
children achieve their own personnel accomplishments, but remains
humble knowing what things would have been like if he would have
remained in the Middle East.

He travels 40 miles one way to preach at the Plevna Christian Church
and has done so since 1974.

Today, David and his wife, Phyllis, still reside on their farm north
of Macon. In June 2009, it was discovered David had a very large brain
tumor. After a 5 1/2 hour operation the tumor was successfully removed,
and chemotherapy and radiation treatments were not needed.

The recent medical condition motivated David in writing his book for
his children and grandchildren.

“I love my adopted country, the United States of America,” he writes.

“I sincerely appreciate the freedoms and the opportunities the United
States of America has given me since my arrival in New York Harbor
on Oct. 17, 1954.

David Doctorian’s book, “My Life Journey – From the Streets of
Jerusalem to the Halls of the Missouri Senate,” may be found at Special
Days in Macon and Admired Evergreen, located south of Kirksville on
Hwy. 63.

DINK TRIGGERMAN SENTENCED

SETimes.com.

July 26, 2011

The confessed killer of journalist Hrant Dink was sentenced by a
juvenile court in Istanbul on Monday.

By Ozgur Ogret for Southeast European Times in Istanbul – 26/07/11

Confessed assassin Ogun Samast was sentenced on Monday (July 25th)
to 22 years in prison for the “planned murder” of Armenian-born
Turkish citizen Hrant Dink in Istanbul on January 19th 2007.

Samast, who was 17 at the time of the shooting, was sentenced by
a juvenile court — saving him from receiving life without parole,
the sentence the court first handed down, and then reduced.

Samast will serve 11 years in prison, due to the law on criminal
execution. He has been in jail for four years already, pointing to
a mid-2021 release.

The shooter offered his final defence at the hearing Monday, expressing
regret and claiming to be a reformed man.

Samast’s lawyer, Levent Yıldırım, addressed reporters outside
the courtroom and argued his client should not be sentenced for
planned murder.

“The incident is not related to [any] planning at all. Ogun [did not
confess] until the last minute,” Yildirim said, adding that he will
take the sentence to the Supreme Court of Appeals.

Dink family lawyer Fethiye Cetin also spoke to the press after the
hearing and criticised the court for failing to give Samast the
24-year maximum jail time.

Cetin said they expected a harsher sentence due to the offence being
committed with a “racist hatred motive” and the act hurting the
society’s culture of co-existence.

“The aim of the criminal law … is not just [to see] justice being
done, but also to keep the social peace [and] provide a culture of
co-existence with all our differences,” she said.

The Friends of Hrant platform has followed the trials since the
beginning, holding demonstrations before the hearings in order to
maintain public interest on the legal process.

“Aside from the sentence Ogun Samast received as the triggerman, I
believe the actual matter with this case is that the actual responsible
parties were not allowed to be tried. This list includes the police,
gendarmerie, the national intelligence agency (MÄ°T) and even former
governors,” member Cigdem Mater told SETimes.

She added that it is a problem that hate crimes are not defined by
Turkish law.

Both the platform and the defence lawyers have been arguing that the
case has not progressed well in the last four years, as those behind
Samast are being protected by the state.

In September 2010, the European Court of Human Rights has found the
Turkish state guilty of failing to protect Dink’s right to life and
freedom of expression.

LAWYERS DEMAND ALL RESPONSIBLE IN DINK MURDER BE TRIED TOGETHER

Zaman
July 26, 2011
Turkey

Ogun Samast was sentenced to 21.6 years in prison for assassinating
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. (Photo: AA)

A prison sentence of more than 20 years for the assassination of
Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink was handed down by an Ä°stanbul
court on Monday. While the decision was hailed by Dink family lawyers,
they also emphasized that justice will not be served unless all
responsible for his assassination are put on trial. Ogun Samast, who
was tried in juvenile court because he was a minor at the time of the
crime, was sentenced to 21 years, six months for “premeditated murder”
and one year, four months for carrying an unlicensed gun.

Arzu Becerik, a lawyer for the Dink family, said that the court gave
Samast the maximum sentence it could. “We asked for a life sentence
and the court gave it. However, the court had to reduce the sentence
because Samast was a juvenile at the time of the crime,” she said,
adding that Samast was 16-and-a-half years old when he shot Dink in
January 2007. Dink was editor of the bilingual newspaper Agos. The
court was required to deliver a sentence between 18 and 24 years due
to Samast’s age.

“The court has been consistent,” she said. However, the lawyers’
demands for merging all related cases have been denied, and the
psychological effect of Samast’s sentencing has therefore been
reduced. “Samast was a hitman; there are obviously other people behind
the murder. They should be put on trial together in order for justice
to be served in this case,” she said.

Samast was detained a day after the murder. Other suspects, including
Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel, were captured in the following days
on charges of soliciting Samast for Dink’s assassination. The murder
shocked Turkey, and the ensuing trial became mired in controversy.

Dink’s family and human rights activists argued that links between
the suspects in the case and the real masterminds of the murder,
suspected to be in the military and police force, were insufficiently
investigated.

In his final testimony, Samast called for his own acquittal and laid
blame on certain newspapers and columnists, stating what he read
in those papers had incited him to commit the crime. “How would I
have known about Hrant Dink and Agos had the newspapers not written
about them?” Samast asked of the court, adding that he otherwise
would never have acted the way he did. He stated that he has been
rehabilitated and apologized for the “inconvenience” he caused his
country. Samast’s case was split from the primary trial after the
adoption of an amendment to the Counterterrorism Law last year allowing
Samast’s transfer to juvenile court. The main trial continues at the
14th High Criminal Court in Ä°stanbul, with the next hearing scheduled
for July 29. Samast still faces separate terrorism charges related
to Dink’s assassination, along with more than a dozen other suspects,
and could face an additional sentence of up to 16 years in prison.

The case was widely regarded as a test of whether the judiciary
could fully investigate possible negligence on the part of Turkish
authorities, who allegedly had foreknowledge of the plot to kill the
journalist. In June, the Trabzon 2nd Criminal Court of Peace convicted
six of eight suspects in a negligence case over the prevention
of Dink’s murder, a rare positive development since the start of
the trial four years ago. The court handed down prison sentences
of six months each for Trabzon army commander Col. Ali Oz and army
intelligence unit director Capt. Metin Yıldız.

To this regard, lawyers for the Dink family stated that although the
decision was welcome, it was unlikely to be a groundbreaking ruling
in the course of the main trial in Ä°stanbul. They had demanded the
prison sentences be based on accomplice charges and that the military
men be tried in the Ä°stanbul court as primary suspects.

.AM ZONE COUNTS 15,700 DOMAIN NAMES

news.am
July 26, 2011
Armenia

YEREVAN. – As of July 2011 .am zone counts 15,700 domain names,
vice-chairman of Internet Society NGO Grigor Saghyan told a press
conference in Yerevan on Tuesday.

According to him, half of the registered domains belongs to the
citizens of Armenia, while others to the citizens of other countries.

The expert emphasized the number of domains increases with increase
of internet users. More people want to have their own websites with
increase of total number of internet users.

YERKIR MEDIA TV IS READY TO BROADCAST LIVE ANC-AUTHORITIES MEETING

Lragir.am

26/07/2011

The Haykakan Zhamanak Daily writes that Yerkir Media said willing
to broadcast the meeting of the delegation of the Armenian National
Congress and the authorities live. The Director of the TV Company
Gegham Manukyan stated this. The opposition welcomed Yerkir Media’s
willingness.

Today the second round of negotiations between the ruling coalition
and the ANC will be held at the House of Receptions of the Armenian
Government.

EITHER RESULTS OR CONFRONTATION, ANC REP SAYS

Tert.am
26.07.11

Talking to journalists following the second round of the
authorities-opposition dialogue, Levon Zurabyan, Head of the Armenian
National Congress (ANC) delegation congratulated them on the fact
that the sides have drawn up the dialogue agenda.

According to Zurabyan, the ANC proposes holding snap presidential
and parliamentary elections in Armenia for legitimate authorities
to be formed in the country as soon as possible. The ANC delegation
proposed that the issue of properly organizing elections be out on
the dialogue agenda.

The next meeting is scheduled for August 4. The sides are expected to
discuss the agenda. The ruling coalition’s delegation rejected the
ANC’s demand for live broadcasts or 30-minute TV appearances after
each meeting.

As regards the ANC proposal that TV channels show ANC trailers,
the ruling coalition’s delegation has not yet responded.

As regards the ANC’s concern over “police intimidations and artificial
transport problems,” the ruling coalition’s delegation asked the
ANC for facts. The ANC informed the ruling coalition’s delegation
that they sent the complaints to the Armenian Government’s relevant
department. According to Zurabyan, Head of the ruling coalition’s
delegation David Harutyunyan promised the ANC to deal with the problem.

As regards the probability of the Armenian authorities agreeing to
the ANC’s demand for snap elections, Zurabyan said: “I consider it
as probable as Armenia’s progress.”

He also pointed out that the ANC is determined to consider this
September a final term for results of the dialogue.

“The country is in a grave political crisis, and we consider a
peaceful way of overcoming this political crisis the best. That
is the reason why we are negotiating,” Zurabyan said. Otherwise,
confrontation should be expected, he added.

ARMENIAN REVOLUTIONARY FEDERATION NOT JEALOUS

Tert.am
26.07.11

The sides’ statements on protecting the Armenian people’s rights,
developing Armenians’ potential raise a question as to whether the
dialogue is the best means of achieving the goals.

At a press conference held jointly with the Heritage parliamentary
group member Armen Martirosyan, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) parliamentary group member Artsvik Minasyan
stated that dialogue has become “something artificial for us.” “Who
says that this dialogue is unprecedented. It can be unprecedented
if it develops into negotiations between two particular forces,”
Minasyan said.

“Besides, when we speak of dialogue, we should realize that it is a
step by two sides aimed to retain their dominance in the political
arena as if they were making certain political decisions,” Minasyan
said.

According to him, the sides’ statements on protecting the Armenian
people’s rights, developing Armenians’ potential raise a question as
to whether the dialogue is the best means of achieving the goals.

“I am confident that this dialogue will not produce any results.

However, we are neither jealous nor envious. We know both the sides and
their positions very well. Largely, they are similar in many aspects,”
Minasyan said.

He pointed out that a change of power also means ousting such positions
from the political arena.

SARKISIAN TACKLES WESTERN ARMENIA QUESTION

asbarez
July 25th, 2011

Sarkisian addresses Olympiad participants

TSAKHKADZOR, Armenia (Combined Sources)-While speaking to participants
of the fifth All Armenian Olympiad of Armenian language and literature
on Saturday, President Serzh Sarkisian was confronted with a question
about the historic Armenian territories in Western Armenia.

Sarkisian’s response: “everything depends on the young generation.”

A student asked Sarkisian whether Western Armenia, with Mount Ararat,
will ever be united with Armenia.

“Everything depends on the young generation. Every generation has
some goal to achieve,” said the President.

“The current generation defended and liberated a part of Armenian
land. If the future generation makes much effort then Armenia will
be one of the best states in the world,” said Sarkisian.

“Generally, the power of the state is not defined through its
territory. The state should be modern, secure and prosperous. The
Armenian people are able to achieve their goals. And they will if
they believe in it,” added President Sargsyan.

LE TAUX DE CRIMINALITE STABLE MALGRE L’AMNISTIE
Stephane

armenews.com
mardi 26 juillet 2011,
ARMENIE

Les recentes liberations de prisonniers ont eu peu d’impact sur le
nombre de crimes commis en Armenie a annonce un haut fonctionnaire
de la police.

” La situation n’est pas alarmante ” a dit Ashot Karapetian, le chef
de la Direction Generale des Enquetes Criminelles au service de la
police nationale.

” La dynamique de la criminalite a augmente un peu depuis l’amnistie
generale. Mais nous avons augmente nos efforts pour resoudre les crimes
” a-t-il dit au service armenien de RFE/RL dans une interview.

Selon la police plus de 530 prisonniers ont ete remis en liberte
depuis l’amnistie generale ordonnee par le President Serge Sarkissian
et approuvee par le Parlement en mai dernier.

Ashot Karapetian a admis que quelques-uns de ces individus ont de
nouveau commis des cambriolages d’appartements a peine quelques
jours après leur sortie. La police armenienne a deja mis fin aux
agissements de deux gangs a-t-il declare, ajoutant que leurs membres
sont maintenant sous les verrous attendant leur procès.

Selon Ashot Karapetian, l’augmentation du nombre de crimes observes
ces recents mois reflète aussi une hausse saisonnière des crimes. Il a
estime que les vols et les cambriolages sont traditionnellement plus
communs durant les mois d’ete quand beaucoup de familles d’Erevan
partent en vacances.