“The perpetrators made no effort to conceal their crime. They asserted that it was a purely religious affair between Iranians, and the Russian authorities need not be involved. They assumed that, as in Iran, the mere fact of proving that their victim was a Baha’i would be sufficient to justify their action. When they saw however that the Governor took no notice of this line of argument, those involved in the plot began to flee to Iran. Some seventy persons fled. Nine were arrested and brought to trial. A military tribunal, sent from St Petersburg, tried the case in November 1890. The judges instructed that the different religious communities sit separately in the court-room. This was the first occasion when many who had secretly been Baha’is openly identified themselves by where they sat. It was also the first occasion in Baha’i history when official recognition was given to the Baha’i Faith as a religion independent of Islam. The court found against the perpetrators of the crime…. The Baha’is were of course jubilant. It was the first time in the forty-five-year history of the Babi-Baha’i movement that an attack on one of their number had been dealt with justly. Baha’u’llah commended the Russian Government for its action. As the news spread throughout Iran it increased the surge of Baha’i immigrants…”