Azerbaijan’s decision of granting pardon to the Armenian officer’s killer runs counter to the norms of international law, reads Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Secretary General Nikolay Bordyuzha’s statement released on Monday.    

“[Also, this decision] questions the capability of the interstate crime reaction system,” the statement states, RIA Novosti News Agency of Russia reports.  

“This move, which apparently was made for some political objectives, cannot be justified in any way. 

Making a hero out of the criminal will solely contribute to the escalation of the already high tension in the region. [And] I am convinced the international community will not hesitate to give an impartial assessment to what happened,” Nikolay Bordyuzha stressed in his statement.    

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.