#Russian sisters appear for trial on charges of killing their abusive father

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Krestina and Angelina Khachaturyan, two of the three sisters accused of killing their abusive father, arrive for a court hearing in Moscow today.
Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

Two of the Russian sisters charged with killing their physically and sexually abusive father arrived for the start of their trial in Moscow Friday morning.

Krestina, Angelina and Maria Khachaturyan were 19, 18 and 17 when they fatally attacked their dad with a hammer and kitchen knife as he nodded off inside their Moscow apartment in July 2018.

Fearing their lives were at risk, they waited until their dad started to doze off before bludgeoning and stabbing him to death in his rocking chair, according to their attorneys.

The two older sisters, Krestina and Angelina, showed up at court Friday, flanked by their attorneys, as well as reporters and photographers around the building, video shows.

Meanwhile, the sisters have been accused by family members of concocting the tales of abuse.

Naira Khachaturyan, the aunt of the three sisters, also claimed on Andrey Malakhov’s ‘Let Them Talk’, that the trio had conspired to kill their father, Mikhail, before he planned to emigrate to Israel when all his daughters were 18.

But last January, the sisters’ claims of years abuse at the hands of their father was confirmed by the prosecutor’s office, who even weighed downgrading their murder charges.

Still, prosecutors ultimately determined that the sisters should be tried for murder — a move that has sparked outrage among the country’s domestic violence activists.

With Post wires