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AZERBAIJAN PARDONS, FREES CONVICTED OFFICER
Today's Zaman
Aug 31 2012
Turkey
An Azerbaijani military officer sentenced to life in prison in Hungary
for hacking to death an Armenian officer was sent back to his homeland
on Friday and, despite assurances, immediately pardoned and freed by
his country's president.
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.
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.
During his trial in Budapest, Safarov claimed that a long-standing
conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia 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.
The two neighboring, former Soviet republics remain at odds over
the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave within
Azerbaijan.
"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.
From: Baghdasarian
Today's Zaman
Aug 31 2012
Turkey
An Azerbaijani military officer sentenced to life in prison in Hungary
for hacking to death an Armenian officer was sent back to his homeland
on Friday and, despite assurances, immediately pardoned and freed by
his country's president.
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.
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.
During his trial in Budapest, Safarov claimed that a long-standing
conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia 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.
The two neighboring, former Soviet republics remain at odds over
the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave within
Azerbaijan.
"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.
From: Baghdasarian