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THE PROTRACTED CONFLICT WITH ARMENIA
New Europe
Sept 17 2012
A further look into Azerbaijan's pardon
September 17, 2012 - 10:53am | By Farhad Mammedov
The issue of Ramil Safarov, the Azerbaijani officer who has been
extradited to Azerbaijan and pardoned by the Presidential decree on
31 August 2012, created groundless hysteria and a stir around it. The
most important thing is that there is a lot of false information in
what international media writes about the release of the Azerbaijani
officer, and the background of this story, also the unrevealed reasons
forcing the Azerbaijani officer to kill the Armenian officer remains
unknown to a large public.
Azerbaijani officer Ramil Safarov and Armenian officer Gurgen
Margaryan were attending the NATO-sponsored English-language courses
in Budapest in 2004. Gurgen Margaryan and another Armenian officer Ayk
Makuchyan, throughout the whole course, have been publicly insulting
the Azerbaijani nation, flag and the memory of the victims of Khojaly
genocide where Ramil lost his family members as well. It has to be
stressed that as a child, Ramil Safarov witnessed the brutal killing
of his family members in front of his eyes in the occupied territories
of Azerbaijan, where he was born, and the invasion of his home town
followed by a difficult life as an internally displaced person.
Therefore, the crime perpetrated by R.Safarov was not ethnically
motivated, as Armenian mass media are trying to propagate, but was
a result of open provocations and insults towards the Azerbaijani
nation. By pouring the propaganda of "ethnically motivated crime",
the Armenian officials try to create an impression that Azerbaijan
is a country where the killing of Armenians is justified, and for
this reason the international community must not allow Azerbaijan to
return its Nagorno-Karabakh region. In reality, few people are aware
of the fact that there are more than 30,000 ethnic Armenians currently
living safely in Azerbaijan, while there is no single Azerbaijani
left in Armenia.
According to the decision of the Budapest court, R.Safarov has been
convicted to a life sentence and served 8.5 years of imprisonment in
Budapest. The Azerbaijani Government, after many years of negotiation
with the Hungarian authorities on the extradition of R.Safarov to
Azerbaijan finally agreed on his extradition on the basis of 1983
Strasbourg Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons. Upon his
arrival to Azerbaijan, R.Safarov was pardoned by the Presidential
decree in accordance with the Constitution of Azerbaijan which gives
the right to the President to pardon any convicted person.
Consequently, there has not been any violation of international or
national legislation in the process of extradition and pardoning of
R.Safarov. Article 12 of the Strasbourg Convention states: "Each party
may grant pardon, amnesty or commutation of the sentence in accordance
with its Constitution or other laws". At the same time, item 22 of
article 109 of the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan states
that the president has the right to "grant pardon".
The most deplorable side of this story is that those demanding today
the punishment of R.Safarov and blaming Azerbaijan for the release
of its officer have not demanded the sentence of the murderers of
613 innocent civilians (mostly children, women and elderly persons)
brutally killed by the Armenian armed forces in the Azerbaijani town
of Khojaly, in February 1992. They also failed to make statements on
the killing of the 9-year-old Azerbaijani boy, Fariz Badalov, who
was shot in the head by an Armenian sniper in March 2011 and then
13-year-old girl, Aygun Shahmaliyeva died in July 2011 as a result
of an explosion of a booby-trapped toy sent via Tovuzchay River from
the territory of Armenia.
One also wonders why there is no condemnation for the April 23, 2001
release of Varoujan Garabedian, a terrorist responsible for the Orly
airport attack in 1983 that killed eight civilians and convicted to
life imprisonment in France, and his extradition to Armenia where he
was not born and did not have family connections. He was welcomed by
then Armenian president Kocharian, and made into a national hero. No
one can explain also why another murderer Monte Melkonian, who was
responsible for the assassination of several Turkish diplomats in
Europe as well as the innocent civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh region
of Azerbaijan, is glorified by the Armenian Government through
the erection of his monument across Armenia. We don't want to
draw a parallel between the aforementioned terrorists and officer
R.Safarov; also, we do not intend to justify a crime. Our intention
is to present a wider picture of the case and factors leading it,
which was deliberately kept out of sight.
We wish that those naming this extradition as a "threat to regional
peace and security" would finally understand the reality that the
regional peace and security in our region is threatened by military
aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan, continued occupation of
1/5 territory of Azerbaijan, and ethnic cleansing of hundreds of
thousands of Azerbaijani civilians. So, stop turning a blind eye to
reality and be brave enough to call things by their names.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/protracted-conflict
New Europe
Sept 17 2012
A further look into Azerbaijan's pardon
September 17, 2012 - 10:53am | By Farhad Mammedov
The issue of Ramil Safarov, the Azerbaijani officer who has been
extradited to Azerbaijan and pardoned by the Presidential decree on
31 August 2012, created groundless hysteria and a stir around it. The
most important thing is that there is a lot of false information in
what international media writes about the release of the Azerbaijani
officer, and the background of this story, also the unrevealed reasons
forcing the Azerbaijani officer to kill the Armenian officer remains
unknown to a large public.
Azerbaijani officer Ramil Safarov and Armenian officer Gurgen
Margaryan were attending the NATO-sponsored English-language courses
in Budapest in 2004. Gurgen Margaryan and another Armenian officer Ayk
Makuchyan, throughout the whole course, have been publicly insulting
the Azerbaijani nation, flag and the memory of the victims of Khojaly
genocide where Ramil lost his family members as well. It has to be
stressed that as a child, Ramil Safarov witnessed the brutal killing
of his family members in front of his eyes in the occupied territories
of Azerbaijan, where he was born, and the invasion of his home town
followed by a difficult life as an internally displaced person.
Therefore, the crime perpetrated by R.Safarov was not ethnically
motivated, as Armenian mass media are trying to propagate, but was
a result of open provocations and insults towards the Azerbaijani
nation. By pouring the propaganda of "ethnically motivated crime",
the Armenian officials try to create an impression that Azerbaijan
is a country where the killing of Armenians is justified, and for
this reason the international community must not allow Azerbaijan to
return its Nagorno-Karabakh region. In reality, few people are aware
of the fact that there are more than 30,000 ethnic Armenians currently
living safely in Azerbaijan, while there is no single Azerbaijani
left in Armenia.
According to the decision of the Budapest court, R.Safarov has been
convicted to a life sentence and served 8.5 years of imprisonment in
Budapest. The Azerbaijani Government, after many years of negotiation
with the Hungarian authorities on the extradition of R.Safarov to
Azerbaijan finally agreed on his extradition on the basis of 1983
Strasbourg Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons. Upon his
arrival to Azerbaijan, R.Safarov was pardoned by the Presidential
decree in accordance with the Constitution of Azerbaijan which gives
the right to the President to pardon any convicted person.
Consequently, there has not been any violation of international or
national legislation in the process of extradition and pardoning of
R.Safarov. Article 12 of the Strasbourg Convention states: "Each party
may grant pardon, amnesty or commutation of the sentence in accordance
with its Constitution or other laws". At the same time, item 22 of
article 109 of the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan states
that the president has the right to "grant pardon".
The most deplorable side of this story is that those demanding today
the punishment of R.Safarov and blaming Azerbaijan for the release
of its officer have not demanded the sentence of the murderers of
613 innocent civilians (mostly children, women and elderly persons)
brutally killed by the Armenian armed forces in the Azerbaijani town
of Khojaly, in February 1992. They also failed to make statements on
the killing of the 9-year-old Azerbaijani boy, Fariz Badalov, who
was shot in the head by an Armenian sniper in March 2011 and then
13-year-old girl, Aygun Shahmaliyeva died in July 2011 as a result
of an explosion of a booby-trapped toy sent via Tovuzchay River from
the territory of Armenia.
One also wonders why there is no condemnation for the April 23, 2001
release of Varoujan Garabedian, a terrorist responsible for the Orly
airport attack in 1983 that killed eight civilians and convicted to
life imprisonment in France, and his extradition to Armenia where he
was not born and did not have family connections. He was welcomed by
then Armenian president Kocharian, and made into a national hero. No
one can explain also why another murderer Monte Melkonian, who was
responsible for the assassination of several Turkish diplomats in
Europe as well as the innocent civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh region
of Azerbaijan, is glorified by the Armenian Government through
the erection of his monument across Armenia. We don't want to
draw a parallel between the aforementioned terrorists and officer
R.Safarov; also, we do not intend to justify a crime. Our intention
is to present a wider picture of the case and factors leading it,
which was deliberately kept out of sight.
We wish that those naming this extradition as a "threat to regional
peace and security" would finally understand the reality that the
regional peace and security in our region is threatened by military
aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan, continued occupation of
1/5 territory of Azerbaijan, and ethnic cleansing of hundreds of
thousands of Azerbaijani civilians. So, stop turning a blind eye to
reality and be brave enough to call things by their names.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/protracted-conflict