The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has launched debate on Ramil Safarov’s case.

Earlier, opening the autumn session, PACE head Jean Claude Mignon said glorification of the heinous crime committed by Safarov is unacceptable.  “I deeply regret the obtaining of a pardon for a criminal through the use of a legal instrument of the Council of Europe developed for truly “humanistic” purposes,” he added.

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.