Lithuanian Armed Forces Captain Saulius Paliulis has been awarded for saving Armenian Officer Makuchyan back in 2004, Armenia’s Ambassador to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia Tigran Mkrtchyan tweeted.

Saulius Paliulis was awarded Vazgen Sargsyan Medal of the Armenian Ministry of Defense for saving Hayk Mukuchyan in Budapest when Azerbaijani servicemen Ramil Safarov attempted to kill him.

IMPORTANT!In 2004 #Lithuania/n @Lithuanian_MoD captain Saulius Paliulis saved Hayk Makuchyan,officer of @ArmeniaMODTeam, in Budapest,when #Azerbaijan/i officer #Safarov attempted 2 kill him. It was my great honor 2 present #Armenia's MOD "Vazgen Sargsyan" medal 2 Mr. Paliulis! pic.twitter.com/yfi2y0gJjt

— Tigran Mkrtchyan (@TMkrtchyan) May 16, 2018

Ramil Safarov, a 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.

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.