Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
April 13, 2006 Thursday

AZERBAIJANI OFFICIAL SENTENCED TO LIFE FOR KILLING ARMENIAN

Budapest, April 13 (MTI) – An Azerbaijani army officer who killed an
Armenian classmate during a NATO Partnership for Peace course in
Budapest two years ago was sentenced to life imprisonment by a
Budapest Court on Thursday.

Ramil Safarov, when he was 27, used an ax to hack to death his
sleeping colleague Gurgen Markarian, 26, of Armenia, in the dormitory
of Miklos Zrinyi National Defence University, where both of them were
attending a three-month English-language course.

Safarov, who showed no repentance in court, said the murder had been
a revenge for a 1992 Armenian assault of Azerbaijanis in the
Nagorno-Karabakh region, which he witnessed as a child. The
Azerbaijani officer said that the Armenians he had met in the
dormitory “were smiling mockingly and were behaving the way members
of a victorious army usually behave towards the defeated.”

Safarov was charged with premeditated murder carried out with unusual
cruelty and vicious motives and sentenced to life in prison without
any chance of parole.

Safarov’s lawyer said they would immediately appeal the verdict.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress