Sweden’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Bildt, considered it “strange” that Ramil Safarov was granted pardon in Azerbaijan. 

“Strange decision in Azerbaijan to pardon man having murdered an Armenian in Hungary. Rule of law must apply,” the Swedish FM wrote in his Twitter account.

Armenian News-NEWS.am reported earlier that Ramil Safarov, a lieutenant in the Azerbaijani military, was extradited on Friday 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 Friday that Armenia is suspending its diplomatic ties with Hungary.