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AZERBAIJAN RAPS "HYSTERICAL" PROTESTS FROM ARMENIA AT OFFICER'S EXTRADITION
Interfax
Sept 3 2012
Russia
Friday's extradition to Azerbaijan of an Azeri army officer sentenced
to life imprisonment in Hungary in 2006 for murdering an Armenian
was a completely legitimate move, the Azeri Foreign Ministry argued
on Saturday, dismissing "hysterical" protests from the president
of Armenia.
Senior Lt. Ramil Safarov murdered Armenian officer Gurgen Markarian
in a fit of frenzy for allegedly insulting the Azeri flag during
NATO-organized classes in Budapest in 2004. In April 2006, a Budapest
court gave Safarov a life sentence without the right to appeal for
pardon for the first 30 years of his incarceration.
On Friday, Hungary sent Safarov back to Baku, and the same day
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev pardoned him. On Saturday, Azeri Defense
Minister Safar Abiyev had a meeting with Safarov at which he conferred
the rank of major on the officer, handed him keys to a new apartment
and returned him pay for eight and a half years.
"The repatriation of Ramil Safarov is a matter that belongs to
relations between Azerbaijan and Hungary, stays within the limits
of law and does not contradict any standards or principles of
international law," Azeri Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev
told a briefing on Saturday.
"As regards the Armenian side, the hysterical statements of [President
Serzh] Sargzyan, who has his hands up to the elbow in the blood of
civilian residents of the Azeri town of Khojaly, are nothing else
than a show and an act of populism," Abdullayev said.
Interfax
Sept 3 2012
Russia
Friday's extradition to Azerbaijan of an Azeri army officer sentenced
to life imprisonment in Hungary in 2006 for murdering an Armenian
was a completely legitimate move, the Azeri Foreign Ministry argued
on Saturday, dismissing "hysterical" protests from the president
of Armenia.
Senior Lt. Ramil Safarov murdered Armenian officer Gurgen Markarian
in a fit of frenzy for allegedly insulting the Azeri flag during
NATO-organized classes in Budapest in 2004. In April 2006, a Budapest
court gave Safarov a life sentence without the right to appeal for
pardon for the first 30 years of his incarceration.
On Friday, Hungary sent Safarov back to Baku, and the same day
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev pardoned him. On Saturday, Azeri Defense
Minister Safar Abiyev had a meeting with Safarov at which he conferred
the rank of major on the officer, handed him keys to a new apartment
and returned him pay for eight and a half years.
"The repatriation of Ramil Safarov is a matter that belongs to
relations between Azerbaijan and Hungary, stays within the limits
of law and does not contradict any standards or principles of
international law," Azeri Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev
told a briefing on Saturday.
"As regards the Armenian side, the hysterical statements of [President
Serzh] Sargzyan, who has his hands up to the elbow in the blood of
civilian residents of the Azeri town of Khojaly, are nothing else
than a show and an act of populism," Abdullayev said.