Brit who axed 75-year-old pensioner to death claims it was in self defense after he was tied down and assaulted

Thursday, February 20, 2025 - The British cyclist facing jail in Finland for hacking a pensioner to death with an axe has been pictured.

Garo Jlitakryan, 32, claims he lashed out at the 75-year-old in self-defence after being tied down and r@ped by the older man at his home in Seinajoki on July 29 last year.

The Londoner told a court in South Ostrobothnia, northwest Finland, that they met at a spa earlier that day while he was in the country on a charity bike ride for “Help the Heroes” before being invited back to the flat.

Jlitakryan, who faces at least 10 years in jail if convicted over the alleged attack, said: ’He told me that if I helped him, he could give me sexual favours, but I didn’t want sexual favours I just wanted to rest and charge my phone.

‘We ate lunch together, which tasted terrible, then I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was tied with bandages, and I couldn’t move properly.

‘He then committed sexual acts on me, and I couldn’t escape. The ordeal was horrible. When it was over, he rolled next to me.

‘Then he started snoring and I decided to escape. I went to the kitchen and cut my ties there.’

Jlitakryan told the court the pensioner also woke up and blocked off the exits by standing in the kitchen doorway holding an axe, saying nobody would believe him if he complained.

He added: ‘The man had an axe in his hand, I had no choice but to defend myself. It was either him or me.’

The defendant said the pair wrestled over the axe before he managed to seize it and hit the older man twice with it.

Speaking to police when he was arrested, he said: ‘The first blow was when I intended to hit him, but not to kill him.‘I slipped and the axe slipped from my hand.’

Jlitakryan was eventually arrested by police on August 17 working at a husky farm almost 300 miles away after the car was found abandoned in a ditch, the Daily Mail reports.

The alleged victim’s daughter described in court how she raised the alarm after failing to hear from him.

Police eventually found the deceased on August 14.
She said she did not believe her father was ‘capable of attacking anyone because of his ill health’.