ASALA In the spring of 1980, Monte was inducted into the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) and secretly relocated to West Beirut. For the next three years he was an ASALA militant and contributor to the group's journal, Hayastan. During this time several Palestinian militant organizations provided their Armenian comrade with extensive military training. On 31 July 1980 in Athens, Melkonian assassinated the Administrative Attaché of Turkish Embassy in Greece, Galip Ozmen, considered by Melkonian to be a legitimate target for representing a regime that committed the Armenian genocide, occupied northern Cyprus, massacred Kurds in Turkey, among other crimes. After his death, Özmen was also revealed to have been a Turkish intelligence (MIT) spy. Melkonian also shot the passengers in the front and back seats who were obscured by darkly tinted window glass, believing them to be other diplomats. The passengers were later revealed to be Ozmen's wife Sevil and his sixteen-year-old son Kaan, who were wounded but survived, and his fourteen-year-old daughter Neslihan, who later died of her wounds. Melkonian was reportedly unhappy to find out who the other passengers were, and later wrote that he would've spared them if he had a clearer view. Monte carried out armed operations in Rome, Athens and elsewhere, and he helped to plan and train commandos for the "Van Operation" of September 24, 1981, in which four ASALA militants took over the Turkish embassy in Paris and held it for several days. In November 1981, French police arrested and imprisoned a young, suspected criminal carrying a Cypriot passport bearing the name "Dimitri Georgiu." Following the detonation of several bombs in Paris aimed at gaining his release, "Georgiu" was returned to Lebanon where he revealed his identity as Monte Melkonian. "French authorities arrested an individual at Orly Airport whose documents identified him as 'Dimitriu Giorgiu.' Subsequent investigation revealed that he was Monte Melkonian, a ranking member of ASALA, and suspected of the attempted assassination on 25 October 1981 of the Second Secretary of the Turkish Embassy in Rome, Gokberk Ergenekon. Mujahed [i.e. ASALA] ordered not only a bombing campaign, but specifically mass bombings of public places, in an obvious attempt to cause large numbers of injuries and deaths. The campaign, undertaken under the name of the "Orly Group," produced no deaths and few injuries, but did effect Melkonian's release. Because the tactic of the retributive bombing campaign had had