Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Մուրադ Թոփալյան" in Armenian language version.
Armenian nationalists rented a locker in the Cleveland area during the 1970s for the storage of guns and explosives. Rental fees on the locker were not paid in 1996, which triggered an opening and investigation of the locker by authorities, including The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms once munitions discovered. Several evidentiary hair fragments were collected from a coat and moving blankets inside the locker. Mitochondrial DNA analysis of these fragments in 1999 matched their profile to that of the leader of the terrorist group, Mourad Topalian. Topalian was arrested, charged, convicted and sentenced to 37 months in prison in 2000. An "ancient" mtDNA analysis was necessary for the hairs, because their mtDNA was minimal and degraded after exposure to the heat of the storage facility over many years. This slightly more specialized approach allows abundant but degraded DNA, such as mtDNA in 25-year-old hairs, to be captured in smaller fragments.
