Bitter enemies Azerbaijan and Armenia traded accusations on Friday amid growing international criticism of Baku’s pardoning of an extradited Azerbaijani soldier who had hacked an Armenian to death.
Ramil Safarov was pardoned, promoted and financially rewarded after being extradited to Azerbaijan from Hungary, where he had been serving a life sentence for killing the Armenian soldier with an axe during a NATO training session in 2004. Visiting Baku, where Safarov received a hero’s welcome on his return a week ago, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the murder was “a crime which should not be glorified”.
But Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev remained defiant, saying the pardon was legal and fair despite the NATO chief’s comments, which followed similar criticism from the United States, the European Union and Russia. “Armenia is unjustifiably kicking up a fuss over Ramil Safarov’s pardoning,” Aliyev said at a news conference with Rasmussen in Baku. “Safarov has been extradited in conformity with the European Convention (on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons) and his pardoning is based on Azerbaijani legislation,” he said. As tensions simmered between the ex-Soviet neighbours that fought a territorial war in the 1990s, Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian accused energy-rich Azerbaijan of flexing its muscles in front of the international community. “We believe that the purpose of pardoning and justifying the murderer is not just that Aliyev wants to improve his image inside the country, but to try to test the international community’s reaction to Azerbaijan’s absurd move,” Sarkisian said in comments released by his press service.
No state should profit from violating the law and unjustly enrich itself, asserting that a criminal state should not be allowed to keep the fruits of its crime. What had happened to Lt. Gurgen Margaryan was hacked to death by axe while asleep cannot be left unpunished. Sooner or Later the killer Safarov will be “ Killed”..someday! Hungary and Azerbaijan they're gonna be a big loser….because The release of assassin Ramil Safarov provided the Armenian side with a strong instrument in Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement talks, “Safarov’s release damaged Azerbaijan’s international image and produced a result contrary to what Azerbaijan hoped to get," Setting free a criminal, who was convicted for an appalling murder, and declaring him a hero conflicts with all legal norms,” “The Azerbaijani leadership justified a murderer and thus took the responsibility for the crime.”
Shame on corrupted Hungarian justice system and authorities .Well, Safarov was not expected to end his life in the Hungarian jail. Some 20 years later he would be extradited to his home country all the same. This was a mere coincidence: Hungary needed money, and Azerbaijan wanted Safarov back. Nothing personal, just business. Business would remain business if it were not for the personality of the released one. Hungary extradited neither a mafia boss nor a tax-dodger, and not even a gun dealer. It released a murderer, whose ultimate goal is assassination of sleeping Armenian. He wouldn’t touch those awake because he wouldn’t survive then. And it was the personality of this slayer that sullied the Hungarian government and, indirectly, its people who actually are not to blame for the mean action of their prime minister.
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