YEREVAN — The remains of Gourgen Yanikian, who inspired the founding of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), have been moved from the US to Armenia, the Armenian Popular Movement reports.The remains will be buried at Yerablur Pantheon in Yerevan On Sunday, May 5.

Yanikian was an Armenian American engineer, Armenian Genocide survivor, best known for the assassination of two Turkish consular officials, Los Angeles Consul General Mehmet Baydar and Consul Bahadir Demir, in California in 1973.

Sentenced to life imprisonment, Yanikian was released on parole in January 1984. It is widely believed that Yanikian’s act was the inspiration for the founding of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, the Armenian militant organization of the 1970s and 1980s which staged attacks on Turkish diplomats in retaliation for the Armenian Genocide.

Yanikian is known to have remarked, “I’m not Gourgen Yanikian but unacknowledged history coming back for the 1,500,000 Armenians whose bones desecrate my invisible existence.” In death, he became a symbol for many Armenians of their resentment toward the Turkish government for refusing to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Sign Up for Our Newsletters

Get notified of the latest updates from MassisPost.

You May Also Like

Artsakh Movement the First Step in Restoring Our Statehood – PM Pashinyan

YEREVAN — The Karabakh Movement that started on these days 34 years…

Samvel Babayan Freed By High Court

YEREVAN (RFE/RL) — Samvel Babayan, a retired army general critical of Armenia’s…

New Initiatives Unveiled at Central California Regional Meeting

Parish leaders discuss how to move from vision to action FRESNO (November…

Armenian Bar Association Annual Meeting in Armenia and Artsakh

By Armen K. Hovannisian, Esq. The great American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson…