United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon regrets the developments unrolling with respect to Ramil Safarov’s pardoning, and he is hopeful that this will not obstruct the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, UN Spokesperson Martin Nesirky stated on Thursday.  

“We hope this matter will not damage the Karabakh peace process and the trust between the parties,” Nesirky said during a briefing.  

“The UN stresses that its member states have a responsibility to adhere to international standards and principles of rule of law in criminal cases in order to ensure accountability and fight impunity,” Martin Nesirky said, stating UN’s position, RIA Novosti News Agency of Russia reports.        

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.