Update: May, 2020.
“Turn to me, freak,” Mikhail Khachaturyan can be heard shouting at one of his daughters.
Their crime? Eating too many sweets.
In a video shown in the court case for Maria, Angelina and Krestina Khachaturyan – who have been charged with murdering their abusive father – Mikhail can be seen kicking one of his daughters.
"This video is further proof of what kind of father Mikhail Khachaturian was. Just a few seconds is enough to see the situation in which the girls lived," one of the girl's lawyers Alexei Parshin told Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.
Maria, Angelina and Krestina Khachaturyan spent their childhoods in fear, scared of the wrath of their violent dad who made their lives a living hell.
They were beaten daily, sexually abused, and shot at with an airgun, court filings as reported by AFP show. It's also claimed he put cameras in the family home to snoop on the girls.
Their mother is believed to have run away from home, due to the treatment she suffered at the hands of Mikhail, who was also allegedly a heroin addict with links to the criminal world.
The sisters refused to go to police fearing the ramifications and would beg their school friends to keep the violence a secret.
In 2016, one of the girls tried to take her own life but was saved by her sisters.
But in July 2018, the sisters snapped and decided if they didn't act soon, one of them would die.
It was a summer evening in Russia's Moscow when Mikhail Khachaturyan decided his living room wasn't clean enough.
He summoned his daughters, and one by one sprayed them in the face with pepper spray.
The punishment left the eldest Krestina unconscious.
The teenagers waited until their dad fell asleep in his rocking chair and attacked him with a kitchen knife and a hammer. He put up a fight but died from dozens of wounds within minutes.
The sisters, who were 17, 18, and 19 at the time of the killing and have confessed to their parts in it, have been charged with murder.
Side note... Here are the hidden domestic violence numbers in Australia. Post continues after video.
The sisters are currently on trial, and if found guilty, Angelina and Krestina could receive a maximum of 20 years in prison. With the youngest sister Maria being 17 at the time of attack, and therefore a child, she has a maximum punishment of 10 years.
The Moscow Department of Health has determined that Mikhail inflicted "serious harm" on his daughters' health, with forensic experts confirming the abuse suffered at his hands - thanks in part to the video. The experts noted that the examination showed that the girls "were in a position of necessary defence".
On May 13, 2020, Russian investigators confirmed they would not be dropping a murder charge against three sisters, leaving the controversial case in legal limbo.
A lawyer for one of the women told the BBC that Russia's investigative committee has now rejected the prosecutor's position. Prosecutors do acknowledge the extraordinary violent circumstances that pushed the girls to kill their father, however, insist this was premeditated murder with their motive being revenge.
So what does this mean now?
"Formally, the investigative committee conducted an additional investigation but reached the same conclusion [as before]," lawyer Alexei Lipser explained, meaning that the original charge of premeditated murder still stands. "It seems the order from above remains the same," he said.
However, as there is no new evidence, the lawyer believes the prosecutor's position will also remain unchanged, which means either the investigators have to agree with the prosecutor and change the charge to self-defence or it "goes on ping-ponging back and forth," the lawyer said.
According to the BBC, the Russian criminal code acknowledges self-defence can occur in instances of "continuous crime", and not just in those where their safety is at immediate risk. Hence, proving the three sisters were victims of "continuous crime", the defence team are trusting the case will be dropped.
The case of the Khachaturyan sisters has sparked outrage in Russia, with more than 300,000 people signing an online petition urging prosecutors to drop the murder charges.
In 2019, hundreds gathered beside the headquarters of the Investigative Committee in Moscow with signs that read "necessary self defence cannot be a crime".
The supporters of the sisters tried to organise a rally in July, however the city refused to provide security for the gathering.
Moscow has refused to approve Saturday's march for the teenage Khachaturyan sisters, who face <20 years in prison for killing their abusive father. Without police on board, "Men's Gov't" & others could attack with pepper spray as threatened, activists say https://t.co/sVGpQhMKZT pic.twitter.com/gZGOaEMIe2
— Alec Luhn (@ASLuhn) July 3, 2019
The Khachaturyan case is indicative of how domestic violence is treated in Russia.
The country doesn't have dedicated laws that protect victims of domestic violence and two years ago decriminalised domestic battery for first-time offenders. Reports of domestic violence sharply declined as a result.
Of the 2,500 women who were convicted of manslaughter or murder from 2016 to 2018 in Russia, nearly 2000 killed a family member in a domestic violence setting, according to data compiled by Media Zona.
One of the girl's lawyers has slammed the prosecutors case as "strange".
"The investigation was silent that the trigger that day was the bullying... the girls were scared and, as experts confirmed, they feared for their lives. These facts and the conclusions of the experts were specifically ignored as they confirm the girls were in a state of necessary defence," Alexei Parshin wrote on Facebook.
In the year before the attack, the girls attended less than two months of classes in total, and yet the school administration asked no questions and did not interfere.
Despite the charges hanging over their heads Parshin says the sisters are in good spirits.
“The first day we met, she [Krestina] said she’s better off here, in jail, than living at home the way she had been," Mr Parshin told AFP. "At least, no one is beating them up."
The girls are currently released from prison under special restrictions, with a curfew imposed and the banning of internet and mobile phone use.
This article was originally published in July 2019 and was updated on May 15, 2020.
