STEPANAKERT. – Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] capital city Stepanakert hosted a march on the occasion of the Armenian lieutenant Gurgen Margaryan’s birthday and against the Ramil Safarov’s extradition and glorification.

Over 3,000 people participated in the march, voicing ‘No to axe policy’, ‘Gurgen is with us,’ ‘We will struggle till the end,’ slogans.

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.

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.