Tweet
PARDON REVIVES BITTER CAUCASUS DISPUTE
By: ELLEN BARRY
The International Herald Tribune
September 6, 2012 Thursday
France
Hero's welcome for man who killed Armenian sets off international protests
CORRECTION APPENDED
Ramil Safarov stepped uncertainly off the plane in his native
Azerbaijan last Friday, returning home after spending eight years
in a Hungarian prison for a gruesome murder. But it took only a
few minutes for celebrations honoring Mr. Safarov, an Azerbaijani
serviceman, to begin. He was given a pardon, a new apartment, eight
years of back pay, a promotion and the status of a national hero.
Mr. Safarov is a hero in Azerbaijan because of the nationality of
his victim: an Armenian man, a fellow student in a NATO-sponsored
English class in Hungary who was sleeping in his dormitory room on a
night in 2004 when Mr. Safarov, carrying an ax, crept in and nearly
decapitated him.
But Mr. Safarov will almost certainly go down in history for the way he
was freed, an episode people have started to call "The Safarov Affair."
The Azerbaijani actions have embarrassed Hungary, which agreed to
extradite Mr. Safarov on the assumption that he would serve at least
25 years of a life sentence. It has set off protests in Budapest and
enraged Armenia, where activists pelted the Hungarian Embassy with
eggs and burned Hungarian flags.
And it threatens to end the lengthy peace process that has kept
Azerbaijan and Armenia from sliding back into bloody conflict over
the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Mr. Safarov, who was a
boy during the war with Armenia, embodies the hatred that has pooled
deeply through the many rounds of faltering negotiations.
Mr. Safarov and his victim, Lt. Gurgen Markarian, were taking an
English-language course organized by NATO's Partnership for Peace,
which was developed to build ties with former Soviet allies in
Eastern Europe.
Mr. Safarov told the police that his Armenian classmates had insulted
him and that he had grown angry, finally buying an ax and waiting
until the predawn hours, passing the time by finishing his English
homework and taking a bath, according to a transcript of the interview
published by Armenian activists.
After Mr. Safarov was arrested, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry
released a statement describing his family's losses during the war
with Armenia and suggesting that Lieutenant Markarian had goaded him.
"There are indications that the Armenian servicemen repeatedly insulted
the honor and dignity of the Azerbaijani officer and citizen,"
the statement said. "All this would have inevitably influenced the
suspect's emotional state."
It was not clear how the Armenian government will respond to Mr.
Safarov's release. An opposition party on Tuesday proposed formally
recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as independent - a step that would signal
the final collapse of peace talks that have long been encouraged by
Russia and the West. The United States immediately, and emphatically,
condemned Mr. Safarov's release, issuing statements describing
officials in Washington as "deeply concerned."
Richard Giragosian, an analyst based in Yerevan, Armenia, said that
Armenia could ratchet up the confrontation by opening an airport in
Stepanakert, the capital of the disputed territory, or by responding
overwhelmingly to cease-fire violations. He said neither side was
seeking a war, but the unfolding events risked "a war by accident."
The homecoming last week - the result of years of lobbying by
Azerbaijan - elevated Mr. Safarov to a new status. He is not the first
extradited criminal to return home as a hero. Similar celebrations
greeted Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan intelligence officer
convicted of bombing a Pan Am flight over Scotland, and Russian leaders
made a political star of Andrei K. Lugovoi, an intelligence officer,
when he was accused of poisoning a political rival in London.
But President Ilham H. Aliyev of Azerbaijan chose to send a provocative
message when he met Mr. Safarov at the airport last Friday and issued
the pardon. It was a notable move for a national leader who has
spent lavishly in recent years to build up Azerbaijan's international
prestige, underwriting soft-power projects like the Eurovision Song
Contest.
CORRECTION:
As published in the International Herald Tribune
Because of an editing error, an article on Thursday about a hero's
welcome for a convicted killer, Ramil Safarov, in his homeland of
Azerbaijan, where he was extradited on Friday from Hungary after
serving only eight years of a life sentence in the killing of an
Armenian serviceman in Budapest, described incorrectly the role that
President Ilham H. Aliyev of Azerbaijan played in the case. He pardoned
Mr. Safarov; he did not meet him at the airport when he returned home.
Friday, September 7, 2012
By: ELLEN BARRY
The International Herald Tribune
September 6, 2012 Thursday
France
Hero's welcome for man who killed Armenian sets off international protests
CORRECTION APPENDED
Ramil Safarov stepped uncertainly off the plane in his native
Azerbaijan last Friday, returning home after spending eight years
in a Hungarian prison for a gruesome murder. But it took only a
few minutes for celebrations honoring Mr. Safarov, an Azerbaijani
serviceman, to begin. He was given a pardon, a new apartment, eight
years of back pay, a promotion and the status of a national hero.
Mr. Safarov is a hero in Azerbaijan because of the nationality of
his victim: an Armenian man, a fellow student in a NATO-sponsored
English class in Hungary who was sleeping in his dormitory room on a
night in 2004 when Mr. Safarov, carrying an ax, crept in and nearly
decapitated him.
But Mr. Safarov will almost certainly go down in history for the way he
was freed, an episode people have started to call "The Safarov Affair."
The Azerbaijani actions have embarrassed Hungary, which agreed to
extradite Mr. Safarov on the assumption that he would serve at least
25 years of a life sentence. It has set off protests in Budapest and
enraged Armenia, where activists pelted the Hungarian Embassy with
eggs and burned Hungarian flags.
And it threatens to end the lengthy peace process that has kept
Azerbaijan and Armenia from sliding back into bloody conflict over
the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Mr. Safarov, who was a
boy during the war with Armenia, embodies the hatred that has pooled
deeply through the many rounds of faltering negotiations.
Mr. Safarov and his victim, Lt. Gurgen Markarian, were taking an
English-language course organized by NATO's Partnership for Peace,
which was developed to build ties with former Soviet allies in
Eastern Europe.
Mr. Safarov told the police that his Armenian classmates had insulted
him and that he had grown angry, finally buying an ax and waiting
until the predawn hours, passing the time by finishing his English
homework and taking a bath, according to a transcript of the interview
published by Armenian activists.
After Mr. Safarov was arrested, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry
released a statement describing his family's losses during the war
with Armenia and suggesting that Lieutenant Markarian had goaded him.
"There are indications that the Armenian servicemen repeatedly insulted
the honor and dignity of the Azerbaijani officer and citizen,"
the statement said. "All this would have inevitably influenced the
suspect's emotional state."
It was not clear how the Armenian government will respond to Mr.
Safarov's release. An opposition party on Tuesday proposed formally
recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as independent - a step that would signal
the final collapse of peace talks that have long been encouraged by
Russia and the West. The United States immediately, and emphatically,
condemned Mr. Safarov's release, issuing statements describing
officials in Washington as "deeply concerned."
Richard Giragosian, an analyst based in Yerevan, Armenia, said that
Armenia could ratchet up the confrontation by opening an airport in
Stepanakert, the capital of the disputed territory, or by responding
overwhelmingly to cease-fire violations. He said neither side was
seeking a war, but the unfolding events risked "a war by accident."
The homecoming last week - the result of years of lobbying by
Azerbaijan - elevated Mr. Safarov to a new status. He is not the first
extradited criminal to return home as a hero. Similar celebrations
greeted Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan intelligence officer
convicted of bombing a Pan Am flight over Scotland, and Russian leaders
made a political star of Andrei K. Lugovoi, an intelligence officer,
when he was accused of poisoning a political rival in London.
But President Ilham H. Aliyev of Azerbaijan chose to send a provocative
message when he met Mr. Safarov at the airport last Friday and issued
the pardon. It was a notable move for a national leader who has
spent lavishly in recent years to build up Azerbaijan's international
prestige, underwriting soft-power projects like the Eurovision Song
Contest.
CORRECTION:
As published in the International Herald Tribune
Because of an editing error, an article on Thursday about a hero's
welcome for a convicted killer, Ramil Safarov, in his homeland of
Azerbaijan, where he was extradited on Friday from Hungary after
serving only eight years of a life sentence in the killing of an
Armenian serviceman in Budapest, described incorrectly the role that
President Ilham H. Aliyev of Azerbaijan played in the case. He pardoned
Mr. Safarov; he did not meet him at the airport when he returned home.
Friday, September 7, 2012