[4] The consulate, a nine-story building on the Boulevard Haussmann, not far from the Arc de Triomphe, was surrounded by dozens of French policemen a few minutes after it was seized.
Sharpshooters took up positions on buildings opposite the consulate, and the area was cordoned off by riot policemen, causing huge traffic jams.
[3] The gunmen, who said they were members of an organization called the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), threatened to blow up the consulate building and everyone inside if the French police tried to intervene.
[2] At the same time, in a statement issued and delivered to the Reuters Beirut office during the siege, ASALA's "Suicide Commandos of Yeghia Kechichian"[5] threatened that if Turkey did not release certain "Armenian political prisoners," and if French authorities intervened in the consulate takeover, all of the hostages would be executed."
[citation needed] Again and again, a militant appeared at a window to shout demands, holding a grenade in his left-hand, a pistol in his right hand—and shielding himself with a terrified hostage.
"[4] The next day, however, the French Government issued a statement saying that the men would have to stand trial on charges growing out of the assault, including the death of a Turkish guard.
"However sorrowful the historical events that the perpetrators of this act invoked," the French statement said, the takeover "was an inadmissible assault on elementary human rights and becomes even more intolerable because once again Turkish diplomats assigned to France have been attacked."
Devedjian and his team have ensured that the chairman of the court banned the participants of the hearings from calling the defendants terrorists instead demanding to use the term combatant (fighters).
Terrorism and genocide are what was committed against the Armenian people, but the people sitting in front of us are not terrorists, they are the descendants of the victims of terrorism and genocide,"The four militants – Vasken Sako Sislian, Kevork Abraham Guzelian, Aram Avedis Basmajian and Hagop Abraham Dzhulfayan – were convicted on 31 January 1984 to 7 years in prison (including the years of their stay in detention pending trial).