AZERBAIJANI OFFICER RAMIL SAFAROV SENTENCED TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT TO SERVE HIS PUNISHMENT AT REFORMATORY OF STRICT REGIME
Noyan Tapan
Feb 28 2007
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 28, NOYAN TAPAN. The April 13, 2006 sentence of
Budapest first instance court on case of RA Armed Forces Officer Gurgen
Margarian’s murder has come into force from February 22. According to
the sentence, the murderer sentenced to life imprisonment, Azerbaijani
Officer Ramil Safarov who was at Budapest investigation isolator should
be moved to a reformatory of strict regime. Lawyer Nazeli Vardanian
representing the interests of the aggrieved party reported this at
the February 28 press conference.
She informed the press conference that the complaint of R. Safarov’s
Hungarian defender Madyar Dorji was heard at Budapest Appeal Court
on February 22.
According to the complaint, though the first instance court examined
the case very thoroughly, nevertheless, many violations were
committed: four expertises were made, but when passing the sentence
the court took as a basis only the defender’s first testimony when the
Azerbaijani Officer confessed that this was an aforethought murder,
that unless he killed the Armenian officer at that moment, the murder
would be committed at another place. R. Safarov had also said that he
had become a serviceman in order to exterminate all Armenians of the
world. M. Dorji declared at the court that his defendant gave the first
evidence in Russian without lawyer’s presence and did not understand
what he was saying. At the same time, he said that Hungarians cannot
understand why R. Safarov killed the Armenian Officer and why this is
qualified in a different way in Azerbaijan and "to kill an Armenian
is not considered as a crime there."
Prosecutor Edit Bagi in his charge qualified the murder as a cruel,
inhuman murder with many aggravating circumstances. "For us, it is very
important to estimate the murder as a fact and not to assess to what
culture R. Safarov belongs," the Prosecutor said. In the Prosecutor’s
words, R. Safarov was away from Azerbaijan in the years of war, he
did not witness the war and none of his relatives perished in that
war. Therefore, as the Hungarian Prosecutor said, the defendant could
not suffer and get into stress when seeing an Armenian.
In her speech made at the sitting Hungarian lawyer Gabriela Gaspar
representing the interests of the aggrieved party said that R. Safarov
had committed this murder for being heroized. In her words, the
same is noticed in Turkey when they tried to heroize the criminal
having committed the murder of Armenian journalist in Istanbul. "The
strictest punishment should be kept to put an end to manifestations of
genocide, for people not to be killed for their national belonging,"
G. Gaspar said.
In N. Vardanian’s words, "the Azerbaijanis have an opportunity to
apply to Strasbourg court, which will be only favorable for us." "So,
Azerbaijanis will show their cultural peculiarities in the center of
Europe, that is, a murder committed on ethnic ground is not a crime,"
she said.