Outpouring of support for sisters who killed abusive father

Angelina, Maria and Krestina Khachaturyan (L-R), the three sisters who are in trial for murdering their father. (Photos: AFP)

One summer night last year, sisters Krestina, Angelina and Maria Khachaturyan went into the room where their 57-year-old father Mikhail was sleeping and attacked him with pepper spray, a knife and a hammer.

The sisters are now in trial for his murder, but thousands of people have come out in support of them, saying the sisters were defending themselves from an abusive father after being failed by a Russian legal system that, critics say, turns a blind eye to domestic abuse.