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AZERBAIJANI MILITARY OFFICER SERVING LIFE FOR MURDER IN HUNGARY IS FREED WHEN SENT HOME
Newser
http://www.newser.com/article/da10irq00/azerbaijani-military-officer-serving-life-for-murder-in-hungary-is-freed-when-sent-home.html
Aug 31 2012
Armenia broke off diplomatic ties with Hungary after an Azerbaijani
military officer sentenced to life in prison here for killing an
Armenian officer was sent back to his homeland on Friday and, despite
assurances, immediately pardoned and freed.
Lt. Ramil Safarov was given a life sentence in 2006 by the Budapest
City Court after he confessed to killing Lt. Gurgen Markarian of
Armenia while both were in Hungary for a 2004 NATO language course.
Azerbaijan and Armenia are ex-Soviet neighbors who have been
locked in a long-standing conflict over the mountainous territory
of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In response to Safarov's release, Armenian President Serge Sarkisian
said his country was cutting diplomatic ties with Hungary, while
Hungarian state news agency MTI reported that protesters in the
Armenian capital of Yerevan threw tomatoes at the building housing
Hungary's honorary consulate and the tore down the Hungarian flag.
Sarkisian said Armenia was "halting diplomatic relations and all
official ties with Hungary."
The White House also criticized the decision to free Safarov.
"President Obama is deeply concerned by today's announcement that
the President of Azerbaijan has pardoned Ramil Safarov following
his return from Hungary," said a statement from National Security
Council Spokesman Tommy Vietor. "We are communicating to Azerbaijani
authorities our disappointment about the decision to pardon Safarov.
This action is contrary to ongoing efforts to reduce regional tensions
and promote reconciliation."
Vietor added that Hungary was also being asked to explain its decision
to send Safarov home.
While Armenians were livid over Safarov's release, he is considered
a hero by many in Azerbaijan for having killed an Armenian.
Hungary returned the 35-year-old Safarov to Azerbaijan only after
receiving assurances from the Azerbaijani Justice Ministry that
Safarov's sentence, which included the possibility of parole after
25 years, would be enforced.
"The Ministry of Justice of Azerbaijan has further informed the
Ministry of Public Administration and Justice of Hungary that Ramil
Sahib Safarov's sentence will not be modified but will immediately
continue to be enforced, based on the Hungarian judgment," the
Hungarian ministry said in a statement issued before the news of
Safarov's release was known.
The ministry said it based its decision on the 1983 Strasbourg
Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons.
In a brief statement posted in English on his website, Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev decreed Friday that Safarov "should be freed
from the term of his punishment."
Hungary's Justice Ministry did not immediately respond to a request
for comment on Safarov's release.
Hungary, which depends on Russia for most of its energy imports, has
been seeking to expand its economic relations with oil-rich Azerbaijan.
Laszlo Borbely, the deputy director of Hungary's Government Debt
Management Agency last week told daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet that
talks between the two countries about a possible purchase by Azerbaijan
of up to 3 billion euros ($3.77 billion) in Hungarian bonds were only
at an "exploratory phase" for now.
Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan, but has remained under
the control of Armenian troops and ethnic Armenian forces since
the end of a six-year separatist war in 1994. Diplomatic efforts
to settle the conflict have brought no result, and shootings on the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border have been common.
During his trial in Budapest, Safarov claimed that the conflict was
at the root of his actions and that he used an ax to kill Markarian
while the victim was sleeping in a dormitory room after the Armenian
repeatedly provoked and ridiculed him.
"My conscience was clouded as a result of the insults and humiliating
and provoking behavior, and I lost all control," Safarov told the
court in April 2006.
Armenian-backed forces drove Azerbaijan's army out of the ethnic
Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s. A 1994
cease-fire ended the six-year war that killed 30,000 people and left
about 1 million homeless and the enclave is now under the control of
ethnic Armenians.
Safarov's lawyers said that his parents and relatives were exiled
from Nagorno-Karabakh during the war and that two of his relatives
were killed by ethnic Armenian separatists.
___
Aida Sultanova in Baku, Azerbaijan, contributed to this report.
Newser
http://www.newser.com/article/da10irq00/azerbaijani-military-officer-serving-life-for-murder-in-hungary-is-freed-when-sent-home.html
Aug 31 2012
Armenia broke off diplomatic ties with Hungary after an Azerbaijani
military officer sentenced to life in prison here for killing an
Armenian officer was sent back to his homeland on Friday and, despite
assurances, immediately pardoned and freed.
Lt. Ramil Safarov was given a life sentence in 2006 by the Budapest
City Court after he confessed to killing Lt. Gurgen Markarian of
Armenia while both were in Hungary for a 2004 NATO language course.
Azerbaijan and Armenia are ex-Soviet neighbors who have been
locked in a long-standing conflict over the mountainous territory
of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In response to Safarov's release, Armenian President Serge Sarkisian
said his country was cutting diplomatic ties with Hungary, while
Hungarian state news agency MTI reported that protesters in the
Armenian capital of Yerevan threw tomatoes at the building housing
Hungary's honorary consulate and the tore down the Hungarian flag.
Sarkisian said Armenia was "halting diplomatic relations and all
official ties with Hungary."
The White House also criticized the decision to free Safarov.
"President Obama is deeply concerned by today's announcement that
the President of Azerbaijan has pardoned Ramil Safarov following
his return from Hungary," said a statement from National Security
Council Spokesman Tommy Vietor. "We are communicating to Azerbaijani
authorities our disappointment about the decision to pardon Safarov.
This action is contrary to ongoing efforts to reduce regional tensions
and promote reconciliation."
Vietor added that Hungary was also being asked to explain its decision
to send Safarov home.
While Armenians were livid over Safarov's release, he is considered
a hero by many in Azerbaijan for having killed an Armenian.
Hungary returned the 35-year-old Safarov to Azerbaijan only after
receiving assurances from the Azerbaijani Justice Ministry that
Safarov's sentence, which included the possibility of parole after
25 years, would be enforced.
"The Ministry of Justice of Azerbaijan has further informed the
Ministry of Public Administration and Justice of Hungary that Ramil
Sahib Safarov's sentence will not be modified but will immediately
continue to be enforced, based on the Hungarian judgment," the
Hungarian ministry said in a statement issued before the news of
Safarov's release was known.
The ministry said it based its decision on the 1983 Strasbourg
Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons.
In a brief statement posted in English on his website, Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev decreed Friday that Safarov "should be freed
from the term of his punishment."
Hungary's Justice Ministry did not immediately respond to a request
for comment on Safarov's release.
Hungary, which depends on Russia for most of its energy imports, has
been seeking to expand its economic relations with oil-rich Azerbaijan.
Laszlo Borbely, the deputy director of Hungary's Government Debt
Management Agency last week told daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet that
talks between the two countries about a possible purchase by Azerbaijan
of up to 3 billion euros ($3.77 billion) in Hungarian bonds were only
at an "exploratory phase" for now.
Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan, but has remained under
the control of Armenian troops and ethnic Armenian forces since
the end of a six-year separatist war in 1994. Diplomatic efforts
to settle the conflict have brought no result, and shootings on the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border have been common.
During his trial in Budapest, Safarov claimed that the conflict was
at the root of his actions and that he used an ax to kill Markarian
while the victim was sleeping in a dormitory room after the Armenian
repeatedly provoked and ridiculed him.
"My conscience was clouded as a result of the insults and humiliating
and provoking behavior, and I lost all control," Safarov told the
court in April 2006.
Armenian-backed forces drove Azerbaijan's army out of the ethnic
Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s. A 1994
cease-fire ended the six-year war that killed 30,000 people and left
about 1 million homeless and the enclave is now under the control of
ethnic Armenians.
Safarov's lawyers said that his parents and relatives were exiled
from Nagorno-Karabakh during the war and that two of his relatives
were killed by ethnic Armenian separatists.
___
Aida Sultanova in Baku, Azerbaijan, contributed to this report.