Varujan Karapetyan ( March 7, 1954 , El-Kamyshly , Syria - January 29, 2019 , Yerevan , Armenia ) - a member of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), who committed a terrorist attack at Orly airport , which resulted in 8 people died and 55 people were injured. [one]
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Content
Act of Terror
In the early 1980s, Karapetyan led ASALA in France. On July 15, 1983, Karapetyan planted a bomb in a large suitcase in front of the Turkish Airlines counter at Orly Airport in Paris . As a result of the explosion, four people were killed on the spot. The bomb consisted of only half a kilogram of Semtex explosives, but it was connected to four portable gas cylinders, which explains the serious burns to many of the wounded, of whom four later died. [2]
Of the 8 dead, only two were Turks, the rest were people of other nationalities. [3] In particular, among the dead were 4 French, one Swede and one American [4] [5] .
After the attack
After the terrorist attack at the airport, the French police detained Varujan Karapetyan, who confessed to a crime and said that the bomb exploded ahead of time and that it had to explode in an airplane during his flight from Paris to Istanbul. [6] By that time, the seventh victim of the attack, Frenchwoman Jacqueline Kirchner, whose 19-year-old son had died on the spot, died of burns in the hospital. [6] [7]
Karapetyan told investigators that at the airport he gave one of the passengers $ 65 and said that he had too much luggage, he asked me to hand in one of the suitcases instead. However, the bomb did not explode in the air, as intended, but on the luggage platform. [eight]
At a trial in the suburbs of Paris, Cretele, Karapetyan refused the testimony he had given during the investigation, and together with other defendants began to deny his involvement in the attack. On March 3, 1985, a jury found Karapetyan guilty of a terrorist attack and sentenced him to life imprisonment .
Release and deportation to Armenia
According to the “Azg” newspaper, representatives of the Armenian intelligentsia Silva Kaputikyan , Gevorg Emin , Perch Zeytuntsyan , Zory Balayan and many others spoke in defense of Karapetyan [9] . In 2001, after Karapetyan served more than 17 years in prison, he was released ahead of schedule and deported to Armenia. [10] [11] . The judges took into account the approximate behavior of Karapetyan, his payments to the victims of the terrorist attack and the willingness of the Armenian side to provide Karapetyan with housing and work [12] .
During a meeting with Karapetyan on May 4, 2001, Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan expressed joy over the release of Karapetyan from a French prison. [eleven]
Armenian human rights activists condemned the granting of asylum to Karapetyan in Armenia [13] .
Estimates of Karapetyan in Armenia are polar. After the terrorist act in the Armenian parliament, “Haykakan Zhamanak” and “Aravot” newspapers compared the organizer Nairi Hunanyan with Karapetyan. The newspaper "Azg", on the contrary, regarded such a comparison as the devaluation of human values [14] .
Varujan Karpitian died on January 29, 2019 from a heart attack in Yerevan . [15]
Notes
- ↑ Terrorist Group Profiles. DIANE Publishing, 1989. ISBN 1-56806-864-6 , 9781568068640, p. 32
- ↑ MH Syed. Islamic terrorism: myth or reality. Gyan Publishing House, 2002. ISBN 81-7835-140-4 , 9788178351407, p. 43
- ↑ Guns, suspects seized as Paris police search for airport bombers. The Globe and Mail. July 19, 1983
- ↑ Andrew Mango. Turkey and the war on terror: for forty years we fought alone. Taylor & Francis, 2005. ISBN 0-415-35001-8 , 9780415350013, p. 109
- ↑ Brian Forst, Jack R. Greene, James P. Lynch. Criminologists on Terrorism and Homeland Security. Cambridge University Press, 2011. ISBN 0-521-89945-1 , 9780521899451, p. 431
- ↑ 1 2 Orly Blast Claims Seventh Victim, New Threats. The Associated Press. July 21, 1983
- ↑ New York Times. Sympathy Won't Help
- ↑ The New York Times. Paris says suspect confesses attack
- ↑ Newspaper "AZG" # 158, 04-09-2003. Leave this person alone! (inaccessible link) . Date of treatment April 15, 2009. Archived April 13, 2014.
- ↑ Armenian terrorist freed and deported from France. Agence France Presse. April 24, 2001
- ↑ 1 2 RFE / RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 87, Part I, 7 May 2001
- ↑ Le terroriste Garbidjian quitte les prisons françaises // liberation, 24 avril 2001
- ↑ Michael Danielian. We need not Western values, but Western psychiatrists. (inaccessible link)
- ↑ Leave this man alone! Archived January 19, 2016 to Wayback Machine // Azg, 2003-09-03
- ↑ [1] (inaccessible link)