Arikan was gunned down in his car by two gunmen while waiting at a red light on the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Comstock Street in the Westwood area of Los Angeles. President Ronald Reagan condemned the murder as "an apparent act of terrorism". Sassounian, who was born in Beirut, Lebanon and hailed from a family of Lebanese Armenian emigres, was identified by witnesses as one of the two gunmen. During the trial, the prosecutors indicated that Sassounian "was motivated to kill Arikan by vengeance for the Armenian Genocide committed by the Turkish Ottomans of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923." The jury determined that Sassounian, an Armenian immigrant formerly of Pasadena, California, shot Arikan to death, on January 28, 1982 at 9:40 am, and particularly that he singled out the victim because of the victim's nationality. Sassounian was sentenced to life in prison; because the jury determined that the killing targeted Arikan based on his nationality, Sassounian was given no chance of parole. His justice costs were once paid by Armenian Revolutionary Federation using funds raised for this purpose.
Eligibility for parole
In 2002, prosecutors agreed to drop the so-called "national origin" special circumstance of the case, making Sassounian eligible for parole, in exchange for his admitting his guilt and formally apologizing. "I participated in the murder of Kemal Arikan," Sassounian read aloud from a letter detailing the plea bargain. "I renounce the use of terrorist tactics to achieve political goals. I regret the suffering of the Arikan family." The California Prison Parole Board rejected Sassounian's demands of release in 2006, 2010 and 2013. California Board of Parole granted parole to Sassounian on 14 December 2016. Turkey's Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the decision of his release and Turkish American groups urged the California Governor to deny parole. California Governor Jerry Brown denied the parole in May 2017 vetoing the board's decision. In a statement, Brown said he believes Sassounian would still pose "an unreasonable danger to society if released," adding that "The killing was a deliberate, planned assassination of a diplomat, plotted at least two weeks in advance." Similarly, on 27 December 2019, the California Board of Parole yet again approved the release of Sassounian. California's new governor Gavin Newsom reversed the parole decision on 25 May 2020 despite a collective plea of the Pan-Armenian Council of Western United States asking Newsom for the release of Sassounian.
