BUDAPEST. – “Azerbaijan assured us, with an official letter, that Ramil Safarov will continue serving his sentence in [the Azerbaijani capital city] Baku,” the Hungarian Ministry of Public Administration and Justice stated.  

The Ministry issued a statement in connection with the decision to extradite Safarov to Azerbaijan, where he was granted pardon.

Despite previous cooperation and arrangements, the Hungarian Ministry was not expecting for Azerbaijan—represented by the country’s Justice Ministry—to release Safarov upon arrival in Azerbaijan. 

In response to Hungarian opposition parties’ criticism of Safarov’s repatriation, the country’s Public Administration and Justice Ministry issued the following statement:

“Azerbaijan had earlier informed  that the life sentence handed down to Ramil Safarov would be directly continued when he was returned to his homeland. Azerbaijan is a full-fledged member of the UN Security Council, as well as a member of the Council of Europe and other international organisations, so an official letter from the country’s justice ministry was regarded as a solid guarantee. In addition, the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan stated that a person serving a life sentence can be freed on probation after 25 years at the earliest.”

Armenian News-NEWS.am reported earlier that Ramil Safarov, a lieutenant in the Azerbaijani military, was extradited on August 31 from Hungary, where he was serving a life sentence—and with no expression of either regret or remorse—for the premeditated axe murder of Armenian lieutenant Gurgen Margaryan, in his sleep, during a NATO Partnership for Peace program in Budapest back in 2004.

As expected, Ramil Safarov’s return to Baku was welcomed, as was his act of murder, by the officials of president Ilham Aliyev’s government and much of Azerbaijani society, and the Azerbaijani president immediately granted him a pardon.

And Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan announced on August 31 that Armenia is suspending its diplomatic ties with Hungary.