ARMENIAN DM REP ON RAMIL SAFAROV TRIAL

YEREVAN, MARCH 14. ARMINFO. It seems the Azeri sides also wants the
early end of the Ramil Safarov trial, says Armenian defence ministry
representative Hayk Demoyan.

Recently Safarov made a statement that could as well bring him to court
in Azerbaijan or Turkey. He said that Azeri and Turkish soldiers and
officers are trained in Northern Cyprus.

To remind, Azeri officer Ramil Safarov axed his Armenian counterpart
Gurgen Margaryan in Hungary Feb 19 2004 and is facing from 15 years
to life in prison.

The lawyer of the Margaryan family Nazeli Vardanyan says that
during the Mar 7 hearing the Budapest court heard the testimony of
two Hungarian witnesses from the institute were both officers were
taking English courses. They said that there was no quarrel between
the officers before the murder.

The fourth medical examination of Safarov – by psychologist,
psychiatrist and stress expert – has shown that Safarov is sane. But
the experts are a bit doubtful of the fluency of his story. He seemed
to tell it by heart. He said he said that his whole family is victim
to stress, especially his brother, but his brother has turned out to
be ill from birth.

The court declined the petition of Safarov’s lawyers to summon the
second Azeri officer Anar Aliyev.

Demoyan notes that the second legal action against Safarov followed
his fight with wards. The reason was Safarov’s stress after a phone
talk with his lawyer Adil Ismailov.

Demoyan urges the Armenian media not to spread viewpoints of those
local politicians who are trying to raise their rating on this
tragedy. One such politician is the leader of Progressive Party Tigran
Urikhanyan who has promised $125,000 for the head of Safarov.

Demoyan and Vardanyan refrain from forecasting the court verdict.

They just say that the court is very professional and unbiased. They
do not very much care for how long a term Safarov will get. They care
for the principle itself: “It is important that an Azeri officer should
be tried as convict who can nothing but kill a man in his sleep.” They
say that Safarov has small chances of extradition to Azerbaijan.