YEREVAN. - Armenian Ministry of Justice has taken steps in all directions on international appealing of Safarov’s pardon. Minister of Justice Hrayr Tovmasyan said in the parliament on Wednesday.

His remark came in response to the question of MP from the ruling Republican Party of Armenia Hayk Babukhanyan what steps the Armenian Government is taking on international appeal of Azerbaijani killer Ramil Safarov’s pardon.

According to Tovmasyan, as it is not considered appropriate to spread or distribute the details of the steps, he can only say that experts are involved.

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 he was declared a national hero. On the same day Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan announced that Armenia is suspending its diplomatic ties with Hungary.