LOS ANGELES -- A young Armenian immigrant convicted of killing the city's Turkish consul general in a barrage of automatic gunfire should die in the gas chamber for the political assassination, the prosecutor told a jury Monday.
Prosecutor Lael Rubin argued for the death penalty at the first day of the penalty phase of the trial of Hampig Sassounian, a 20-year-old Armenian immigrant from Lebanon.
Sassounian was convicted last Wednesday of first-degree murder in the Jan. 28, 1982 ambush slaying of Consul General Kemal Arikan, who was shot in his car at a Westwood intersection. The jury also found him guilty of the special circumstance of killing a person because of his nationality. Special circumstances are required for the death penalty under California law.
Outside the Superior Court several hundred Armenians rallied in support of Sassounian, whose older brother, Harout, was convicted last year of firebombing Arikan's home in 1980. Another suspect in the consul general's murder, Krikor Saliba, remains a fugitive.
Prosecutors claim Arikan was killed as part of an ongoing vendetta by underground terrorist groups bent on avenging the 1915 massacre of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians by the Turks.
Defense attorney Paul Geragos asked the jury to spare Sassounian's life and called Sassounian's mother and aunt to plea for mercy. They were supported outside the courtroom by demonstrators wearing white armbands reading 'Free Sassounian.'
The Armenian supporters denied that Sassounian was a member of one of the underground revenge units and asked why one of their people should be convicted while 'the Turkish government is not called to account for the murder of 1.5 million Armenians.'
The terrorist groups have claimed responsibility for several attacks around the world in the last decade, beginning in 1973 with the assassination in Santa Barbara, Calif., of the Turkish consul general to Los Angeles.
Armenia is now divided between Turkey, the Soviet Union and Iran. There are large concentrations of Armenians in the United States, including more than 200,000 in Los Angeles.
The jury which convicted Sassounian will decide if he will be sentenced to death or to life in prison without possibility of parole.
