Three women who killed their dad when they were teenagers have claimed he was a sick paedophile who abused them and made them dig their own graves.
Mikhail Khachaturyan, 57, will be put on trial posthumously by a court in Moscow, Russia, over claims he raped his children and made pornographic films of them, causing them serious health damage.
After his death in 2018 the three siblings, then all in their teens, had been accused of murder and faced years in jail.
Krestina, Angelina and Maria Khachaturyan, then 19, 18 and 17, admitted killing the "tyrant", alleging they faced "systematic torture" at his hands including rapes and beatings.
They are said to have stabbed him to death with his own hunting knife.
But their murder cases have since been returned to the prosecutor’s office, with their fate now resting on the outcome of their father's trial.
Their only hope of having the suspicion of murder removed from them is if he is posthumously convicted.
Evidence is expected to include a post-mortem, while an earlier report from the Serbsky Institute of Psychological, Psychiatric and Medical Examinations found the father was a child sex attacker with "a tendency to aggression" who had "special sexual preferences aimed at his own daughters”.
The report found the abusive father manipulated his daughters with threats, violence, humiliation, as well as used “beatings, mocking them, and physical and sexual abuse”.
He is also alleged to have made them “dig their own graves”.
He also made pornographic videos involving his daughters which he posted on the internet.
Mari Davtyan, Angelina's legal representative, said: “The examinations confirmed the father's violence against his daughters…
“The experts found that each of the girls since 2014 suffered from abuse syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder - all of these conditions have a direct causal relationship to Khachaturian's actions.”
The girls had no other relatives who could stop the nightmare they faced, it was established.
Ms Davtyan said they killed him out of self defence, as he had been firing at them with a non-lethal gun but owned more powerful weapons.
He said: “They had no shadow of doubt that he would shoot - first of all because he had done it,”
“He shot at the girls just for fun. He checked his traumatic gun by shooting into the leg [of his daughter].
“Just for a joke. He drove them out to dig graves for themselves in the woods.
“They absolutely believed that this [threat to kill them] was real.”
Lawyers for the three now hope they will all be totally cleared.
The sisters now live separately, and are not allowed to communicate with each other by court orders.
When they killed him as he slept they were in an “unstable” psychological state and felt “hopeless”, fearing for their lives, according to evidence heard in previous court cases.
Other family members have accused the sisters of lying about their father’s sexual abuse, and seeking his money by killing him.
A lawyer acting for the dead father, Olga Khalikova, has said she would dispute the claims of sex abuse and pornography.
“There were no biological traces confirming the sexual abuse of girls, and cannot be," she said.
She claimed the girls had access to their father’s mobile, and may have sent the alleged sexually explicit film.
“The duty of the investigation was to prove that it was Mikhail who sent this video, but this was not done," she said.
A source told RA Novosti state news agency that the posthumous case had been registered by the Butyrsky District Court of Moscow, though the date of its consideration has not yet been set.
Earlier stages of the five-year legal process involving the year had seen mass protests calling for charges against the girls to be dropped and reform in the Russian judicial system.
