Hungary considers it unacceptable that Ramil Safarov received pardon from the president of Azerbaijan, reads the Hungarian MFA’s protest note which was handed to Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to Hungary, Vilayat Guliyev.

“Hungary refuses to accept and condemns the action of Azerbaijan, which contradicts the relevant rules of international law and sharply contrasts the undertaking of the Azerbaijani side in this matter, confirmed by the Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of Azerbaijan, in his letter of 15 August 2012 addressed to the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice of Hungary,” the note states.  

In this letter, Azerbaijan quoted the relevant international Convention it undertook that the sentenced person will serve the remaining part of his prison sentence in his homeland and may be released on conditional parole only after he has served at least 25 years of his sentence.

“Hungary believes that Azerbaijan’s decision is inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation, which is based on the mutual trust that was achieved between the two sides as a result of many years of cooperation,” the Hungarian MFA’s protest note states.   

In addition, analysts agree with the view that, when extraditing Safarov to Azerbaijan, the Hungarian government hardly knew what it was doing and could not imagine the consequences of such move. Therefore the Hungarian government’s future statements—including the note of protest—are actions toward misleading.    

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.