page_title: Krikor Zohrab
section_title: Arrest and assassination
hierarchical_section_title: Krikor Zohrab / Arrest and assassination
caption_attribution_description: Grigor Zohrab, stamp of the Armenian Post, 2011.
context_page_description: Krikor Zohrab was an influential Armenian writer, politician, and lawyer from Constantinople. At the onset of the Armenian Genocide he was arrested by the Turkish government and sent to appear before a military court in Diyarbakır. En route, at a locality called Karaköprü or Şeytanderesi on the outskirts of Urfa, he was murdered by a band of known brigands under the leadership of Çerkez Ahmet, Halil and Nazım some time between 15 July and 20 July 1915
context_section_description: During the mass arrests and execution that would signal the start of the Armenian Genocide in and around April 24, 1915, Zohrab was diligently working to try to stop the atrocities. As a member of Parliament he tried to contact the Turkish authorities and to plea for the immediate cessation of the massacres. He even contacted his supposed friend Talat Pasha to protest and ask for redress, but to no avail. Zohrab told Talat that one day he would demand an explanation for these actions. This would be the last time the two would meet. Some in his immediate circle strongly encouraged him to leave the country, but he refused.
  The following day, on May 21, 1915, Zohrab was arrested by the Turks, together with another deputy to the Ottoman Parliament. Ordered to appear before a court martial in Diyarbakır, they traveled together by train to Aleppo, escorted by one gendarme. 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. Some sources state that Cemal Pasha himself tried to secure their return, but Talaat Pasha insisted on having the pair court martialed. They were then dispatched to Urfa and remained there for some time in the house of a Turkish deputy friend. Later, they were taken under police escort and taken to Diyarbakır by car. They were murdered by the well-known band of brigands led by Çerkez Ahmet, Halil and Nazım, at a locality called Karaköprü or Şeytanderesi in the outskirts of Urfa, some time between 15 July and 20 July 1915. 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.
caption: Krikor Zohrab, stamp of the Armenian Post, 2011.
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