Wednesday, February 19, 2014 marks the ten-year anniversary of the atrocious killing of Armenian military officer Gurgen Margaryan in Hungary, and at the hands of Azerbaijani military serviceman Ramil Safarov.

Ramil Safarov, a then-lieutenant in the Azerbaijani military, was extradited on August 31, 2012 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. Safarov had planned on killing the other Armenian military serviceman, who likewise was attending the aforesaid program, but he was unable to carry out this plan.

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, he was declared a national hero, promoted to a higher military rank, and was allocated housing and pension.

And Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan announced on August 31, 2012 that Armenia is suspending its diplomatic ties with Hungary. Also, Sargsyan instructed the Ministry of Justice to take all measures to petition to the international judicial tribunals, and with respect to the Safarov case.   

Ramil Safarov’s pardoning was condemned by virtually all international organizations.   

The Armenian party had applied to the European Court of Human Rights in February 2013, in connection with the Ramil Safarov case. The complaint was with respect to Articles 2 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Photo by Arsen Sargsyan/NEWS.am