YEREVAN. – The Armenian side intends to protest the legality of the decisions to extradite and subsequently release Ramil Safarov. This was stated Wednesday during a press conference by international law expert Levon Gevorgyan, and Defense Minister’s Board Secretary Hayk Makuchyan—who miraculously had survived death in Budapest and whom the Hungarian court had declared injured party.
The event was devoted to the memory of Gurgen Margaryan, who would have turned 34 on Wednesday.
In Gevorgyan’s and Makuchyan’s words, the format of the lawsuit is being discussed at present, and as to whether Makuchyan, or the tribunal to which the lawsuit will be addressed, should be the plaintiff.
As per Gevorgyan, this petition refers to the violation of the right to life, and, moreover, a violation on the part of Azerbaijan. “This refers more to compensating moral and material damage and certain political measures,” the expert noted. According to him, the amount of the compensation will be several tens of thousands of euros, and the trial could continue for years.
“Gurgen was a very good man,” Hayk Makuchyan noted in his turn, and said the statements that Gurgen had “insulted” the Azerbaijanis are a lie.
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.
Ramil Safarov’s pardoning is condemned by virtually all international organizations.
