Krikor Zohrab

Krikor Zohrab defended successfully many Armenians charged with a variety of political and criminal offenses between 1895-96.

As a result of his defense of a Bulgarian revolutionary in the course of which he accused a Turkish official of torture, he was disbarred and forced to live abroad.

[3] In 1908, following the revolution of the Young Turks, Zohrab became a member of parliament in the Ottoman Council, and also served his community as an Armenian councilor.

In 1909 during the Adana massacre, he strongly criticized the Turkish authorities for their actions and demanded that those responsible be brought to justice.

To serve the Armenian cause, Zohrab wrote an influential paper in French called "La question arménienne à la lumière des documents" (The Armenian question in light of documents), published in 1913 under the pseudonym Marcel Léart in Paris.

One of his famous articles, entitled "Broom," criticized Armenian nationals and works saying they needed some "sweeping" to bring them back to order.

One of Zohrab's characteristics was that he would regularly express himself in a provocative fashion with disregard to the Turkish state's repressive authority.

During the mass arrests and execution that would signal the start of the Armenian Genocide in and around 24 April 1915, Zohrab was diligently working to try to stop the atrocities.

On the 1 June 1915, he once more demanded explanations for the massacres inflicted on the Armenians in the eastern provinces from both Talaat and the secretary general of the Committee for Union and Progress (CUP) Mithat Şükrü Bleda and mentioned that one day he would demand an explanation for these actions in the Ottoman Parliament.

They remained in Aleppo for a few weeks, waiting for the results of attempts by the Ottoman governor of the city to have them sent back to the capital.

[6] The murderers were tried and executed in Damascus by Cemal Pasha in September 1915, and the assassinations became the subject of a 1916 investigation by the Ottoman Parliament led by Artin Boshgezenian, the deputy for Aleppo.

Young Krikor Zohrab, undated photos
La Question arménienne , written by Zohrab using the pen name Marcel Léart
Residence of Krikor Zohrab, Istanbul
Krikor Zohrab, stamp of the Armenian Post , 2011.