The Story of Hampig Sassunian from prison to freedom….
A man who spent decades behind bars for a political act opens up about sacrifice, justice, and what it means to be Armenian.
Hampig Sassunian sits across from me in Skhtor, his restaurant in Yerevan, with the ease of someone who has made peace with his past, though not with history. At 60-something, he has the strong, stoic face of a man who has lived multiple lifetimes and the intensity of someone who hasn’t stopped fighting, just changed his weapons.
His story begins not in a prison cell, but in the floods of Lebanon.
Hampig was the fifth of eight children in a family that knew poverty intimately. Growing up in Beirut, sandwiched between Armenian and Palestinian neighbourhoods, his childhood was defined by precariousness. The unnamed river that ran near their home had no banks, and every rainstorm brought water crashing through their house. His parents eventually moved the family to a safer area, but the instability had already seeped into his bones.
His parents were patriots, survivors themselves. They fed their children stories, not fairy tales, but family history. His grandmother’s brother had been killed in the Armenian Genocide. Hampig was named after him: Hambartsum. Growing up, these weren’t abstract historical events, they were the names of killed relatives during Armenian genocide , the faces in family photographs, and the reason his parents spoke with such passion about Armenia.
At twelve years old, Hampig witnessed the war between Palestinians and Lebanese. He saw dead bodies. The trauma compounded with the genocide stories his parents had shared created something in him: a wound that wouldn’t close and a sense of injustice that wouldn’t fade.
Everything changed when his family moved to the United States in 1977. He joined the Boy Scouts, then the AYF (Armenian Youth Federation). By nineteen, Hampig had decided he would join the armed struggle against the Turkish government. The patriotism wasn’t imposed; it was a homecoming.
By nineteen, Hampig had decided he would join the armed struggle against the Turkish government. Not because he was looking for violence, but because the Turkish government refused to acknowledge the genocide. They occupied Western Armenia. And they continued to deny the truth. He\u00a0says\u00a0he\u00a0didn’t\u00a0have\u00a0any\u00a0other\u00a0option.
In 1982, everything changed. Hampig learned that the Turkish consul general in Los Angeles was in the city, the same official who was publicly denying the Armenian genocide and calling Armenians liars. Hampig made a decision that would define the rest of his life. On January 28, 1982, he took direct action against the Turkish consul general’s office.
He didn’t run. He was arrested and sentenced to life without parole.
When I ask Hampig if prison changed him, he shakes his head firmly. “It didn’t change me personally because the struggle was about justice and freedom,” he says. “The Turkish government hasn’t changed. They continued with denial and occupation of our lands.”
But those years still hurt.
The hardest part, he tells me, was the separation. Being away from family. From friends. He felt a sense of loss for the life he could have lived. The loneliness was suffocating. What kept him alive was contact with the outside newspapers, television, and letters from family and friends. They became his lifeline, his proof that the world still existed beyond the prison walls.
Hampig went before the parole board six times over fifteen years. In 2016 and 2020, they found him suitable for release. But both times, under pressure from the Turkish government and the U.S. government, the governor overruled the decision. The system had deemed him a political liability.
Then came the court challenge. A judge named Ryan examined the case and found what the governor apparently could not: Hampig wasn’t a danger. He ordered his release and approved his parole.
When Hampig finally arrived in Armenia, he couldn’t find words for what he felt. He had genuinely thought he would die in prison. He had made peace with that possibility. But instead, he was standing in the country he had dreamed about for decades the country he had sacrificed everything for.
“It was an amazing feeling,” he says simply. “Words couldn’t describe it.”
He couldn’t work for the first few months. Adjustment was harder than he expected. Then he heard about a small pub called Monk House on Saryan Street. He became a partner, but something didn’t feel right about it. When Skhtor came up for sale, he made a deal; he traded his shares in Monk House for ownership of Skhtor. Now it’s his. It’s where he works, where he builds something, where he moves forward.
When asked if he regrets his past. His answer is immediate and unwavering: “I don’t regret taking part in the armed struggle. It was about freedom and justice. We didn’t have any other choice.”
What’s striking is that he doesn’t say this with bitterness or defensiveness. He says it the way someone states a fact. The Turkish government still occupies 80 percent of Western Armenia. They still deny the genocide. They killed countless Armenians. How could he, in good conscience, just forget? How could he move on as if it never happened?
“We owe it to our country justice and freedom and a future for our children,” he says.
But he’s also a man who has changed. Prison taught him something, even if it didn’t change his core beliefs. He’s softer now, or at least, he’s trying to be. He wants to run his business. He wants to live in peace. He’s about to become a father of twins.
When I ask what he wants to tell younger Armenians, his voice shifts. There’s urgency in it, but also hope.
“I want them to love the country and the people,” he says. “Grow up as good, patriotic Armenians. Stand up for human rights and the rights of Armenian people. Don’t be selfish. We need to protect our country and the future of our children diplomatically, through education, by teaching the right history, and by preserving our traditions.”
He pauses. “We can’t just let them get away with it.”
Hampig Sassunian is a man caught between two worlds, the world of justice and the world of peace. He has paid an enormous price for his beliefs, and he stands by them. Yet he also knows that his twins will inherit a different Armenia than the one he dreamed about in his prison cell. They will have choices he didn’t have. That, perhaps, is enough.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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