I was very much surprised by the decision of the Hungarian government, which did not require any guarantees in return for Ramil Safarov’s extradition to Azerbaijan. Safarov should have continued serving his sentence, and not be granted pardon, in Azerbaijan, Hungary’s former FM Péter Balázs told Armenian News-NEWS.am.    

In response to the query as to whether the economic component played a huge role in the arrangement for Safarov’s extradition, Balázs noted that Hungary has its loan relations with the EU.   

“[Monetary] Means are necessary for the successful activity of Hungary’s economy. Now, rumors are circulating about a monetary compensation by the Azerbaijani side, but these have not been confirmed as of yet,” Hungary’s former FM stated.   

Also, he expressed a view that Hungary and Azerbaijan reached the decision on extraditing Safarov, but “such delicate issue should first have been settled with Armenia.” 

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.