Monte Melkonian is one of the main responsible for the Khojaly Massacre in 1992, in which 613 people, including 83 children and 106 women, were killed. Melkonyan, one of the leaders of the ASALA terrorist organization martyred Turkish diplomats in the 1980s.
Monte Melkonyan was born in 1957 in the town of Weisley, not far from the city of Fresno in the US state of California. He knew he was Armenian from an early age. He visited Armenia and studied the history of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Monte's final thesis is dedicated to the study of cave tombs of the Kingdom of Van. He defended his thesis in 1978. He received a scholarship to study for a doctorate at Oxford University. However, Monte did not go to England, he went to Western Armenia to examine the Vaspurakan rock tombs and dwellings.
After joining the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia in 1980, he quickly became one of its leaders. In 1981, the famous Van military operation was held with his participation. On November 11, 1981, Monte was arrested at Orly Airport in France on charges of carrying a false passport and carrying a gun.
He was initially sentenced to 4 months in prison and later the court decided to deport him from France. "All Armenians have fake passports - unless they are French, American, Armenian passports, they will be fake," Monte told the court. He returned to France with a false passport in 1985 and was rearrested a few months later on charges of organizing "terrorism". Monte was released from prison on January 16, 1989.
Monte Melkonian (November 25, 1957 – June 12, 1993) was an Armenian-American revolutionary and left-wing nationalist militant. He was a commander in the Armenian army in Nagorno-Karabakh fighting Azerbaijan during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in the early 1990s.
He published many articles in English in "Hay Paykar" newspaper in Paris, "Kaytser" newspaper in London, and "Sardarapat" magazine.
Monte Artsakh came to Armenia when the liberation struggle began. After being released from prison in 1991, Monte came to Yerevan, where he worked for seven months at the Academy of Sciences to write and publish the book "Armenia and its Neighbors". Here he adopted the pseudonym Avo and went to Artsakh in September 1991.
His friends say he is tough and uncompromising towards cowards, all those who hinder his plans.
Posthumously, he was awarded the title of National Hero of the Republic of Armenia. The Armenian Military College bears his name, there are schools named after him in Yerevan and Artsakh. Residents of the Artsakh city of Martuni call the city Monteaberd, in honor of the commander.
He killed Turkish diplomats
Yesterday, his statue in Karabakh was removed by Azerbaijan. This person was a member of ASALA and killed Turkey's Athens Embassy Administrative Attaché Galip Özmen and his 14-year-old daughter Neslihan Özmen in 1980.
He was caught not once but twice in France; He was imprisoned for 4 months in 1981, not for the crimes he committed but for "carrying an unlicensed weapon" and "forgery of documents", and then he was deported.
He returned to France again in 1985. He was sentenced to 6 years in prison for leading a terrorist organization and was released after 4 years.
Then he married someone named Seta and from there he moved to Armenia...
Monte Melkonian, under the nickname "Avo", ordered the death of hundreds of Azerbaijani civilians. He was killed by Ibad Huseynov, a soldier in the Azerbaijani army, on June 12, 1993.
Armenia also established a military academy in 2017 in the name of the ASALA militant responsible for this massacre.