On January 27 , 1973 , the 77-year-old Gourgen Yanikian , under the alias of an Iranian man named Yaniki , met with consul general Mehmet Baydar and Demir at the Biltmore Hotel in Santa Barbara , promising to make a gift of a bank note and a painting stolen from the Ottoman palace more than a century earlier to Turkey . As the three men began to converse over lunch , Yanikian revealed to them that he was not Iranian , but Armenian and a survivor of the Armenian Genocide . Baydar dropped the bank note in anger and a heated exchange took place . Yanikian then pulled a Luger pistol from a hollowed-out book and emptied nine rounds at them , hitting them in the shoulders and chest , though none of the wounds were lethal . As Baydar and Demir lay on the ground Yanikian pulled out a Browning pistol from a drawer and fired two rounds into the head of each man , " what he considered mercy shots . " That neither man was alive during the genocide " mattered little to Yanikian , " according to journalist Michael Bobelian : " Just as Ottoman dehumanization of the Armenians a half century earlier opened the door for so many ordinary citizens to participate in the Genocide , Yanikian came to view the men not as human beings , but as symbols of decades of injustice . " One primary school in Istanbul , and a street in Ankara are named after Bahadır Demir
Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
Bahadır Demir