TRIAL BEGINS IN HOOVER HIGH SLAYING DEFENSE: ETHNIC POSTURING.

Byline: Naush Boghossian Staff Writer

The long-awaited murder trial of two Glendale youths got under way Thursday, with attorneys debating whether the 17-year-old victim was killed during a gang fight or because of ethnic tension between Armenians and Latinos at Hoover High School.

Prosecutors said Hoover High senior Raul Aguirre was beaten and fatally stabbed on May 5, 2000, when he intervened in a fight between a friend, Jimmy Orozco, and the defendants, members of an Armenian gang.

But defense attorneys said their clients, Karen Terteryan, now 21, and Rafael Gevorgyan, 18, acted in self-defense and were victims of simmering hatred between Latinos and Armenians.

``This case comes down to nothing more than a clash between ethnic groups,'' said high-profile defense attorney Mark Geragos, who is representing Terteryan. ``This was young, immature kids playing around with their ethnicity. It was not a murder here, but a tragic, needless conflict based on ethnicity.''

Terteryan was 17 at the time of the fight, and Gevorgyan was 15, but both are being tried as adults on charges of street-gang murder, attempted murder and street terrorism. If convicted, Terteryan faces life in prison without parole and Gevorgyan faces a possible term of 25 years to life.

Both prosecution and defense agree that Gevorgyan hit Aguirre on the head with a tire iron and Terteryan stabbed the victim four times.

A third defendant, Anait Msryan, pleaded guilty last week to charges of attempted murder in a plea bargain reached with prosecutors. Msryan, who was 14 at the time of Aguirre's slaying, has agreed to testify against her two co-defendants in exchange for a seven-year sentence in the California Youth Authority.

During his opening statement, prosecutor Darrell Mavis told the eight- woman, four-man jury he would prove that Terteryan, a member of the Armenian Power gang, and Gevorgyan, a ``wannabe'' gang member, intended to kill.

``We're going to prove that Terteryan came out of the Nissan armed with a knife, and when he came out of that Nissan, he had his shirt off - and the reason is because he had tattoos signifying Armenian Power,'' Mavis said.

``It was a symbol in front of that school that you are not to mess with AP.''

Geragos argued that Terteryan was not a gang member, the fight was ``not about gangs,'' that Aguirre's death was not premeditated and that the defendants acted in self-defense.

With a limited grasp of English and a small physique, Terteryan had gotten an AP tattoo in an effort to look tougher and stop the beatings he regularly experienced, Geragos said.

The prosecution revealed that in a secretly recorded conversation in the back of a police car, Terteryan and Gevorgyan bragged in Armenian about the fight.

Gevorgyan's attorney, Andrew Flier, plans to prove that his client was not a gang member and stepped in that day to help his friend - much like Aguirre stepped in to save his friend.

Naush Boghossian, [phone]

naush.boghossian(at)dailynews.com