Armenia's health ministry reported on Thursday that the Hungarian government have donated 100 thousand doses of Astrazenecca coronavirus vaccine. On Wednesday, the foreign ministry informed that through the mediation of the Government of Hungary, five Armenian prisoners of war were repatriated from Azerbaijan.
To note, Armenia suspended diplomatic relations with Hungary in 2021 during an emergency meeting of his Security Council chaired by former president Serzh Sargsyan. The move came following the extradition of Ramil Safarov – convicted of murdering Armenian Lieutenant Gurgen Margaryan in Hungary in 2004.
"This has happened because the Government of Hungary, a member State of the European Union and NATO, has made a deal with the authorities of Azerbaijan," Sargsyan declared then at the meeting with the heads of diplomatic missions accredited in Armenia.
The Hungarian anti-corruption Átlátszó website later published a report, suggesting that the Orbán government’s motivation for handing back to Azerbaijan the Azeri axe murderer convicted of killing an Armenian army lieutenant in Hungary, may have been financial gain,
In 2012, at precisely the same time that Hungary released Safarov, more than $7 million was deposited into a bank account opened at Hungary’s MKB Bank, under the name of the son of an Azeri politician. The account was linked to an offshore company that folded in 2015 and which had been closely tied to Azerbaijan’s government. The money that arrived in Hungary was transferred by a firm called Metastar Invest LLP to a Hungarian bank account linked to Velasco International Inc.
The transfer of $7 million into the mysterious MKB Bank account coincided with an improvement in diplomatic relations between Hungary and Azerbaijan. In 2014, Viktor Orbán met with President Aliyev in Budapest, where the two leaders signed a strategic partnership.
To remind, In 2004, in Budapest Azerbaijani officer Ramil Safarov, who was participating in a training course within the framework “Partnership for Peace” programme, murdered Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan while he was asleep by axing him to death and attacked another Armenian officer Hayk Makuchyan. Ramil Safarov, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Hungarian court, was transferred to Azerbaijan, where enforcement of the sentence should have been continued. However, immediately after the transfer Ramil Safarov was pardoned and glorified.
On May 26,2020, The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) issued a judgement in the Case of Makuchyan and Minasyan v. Azerbaijan and Hungary. The court held that there had been a procedural violation by Azerbaijan of Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights and a violation of Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination). According to the judgement, there has been no justification for the Azerbaijani authorities’ failure to enforce the punishment of military officer Ramil Safarov and to in effect grant him impunity for a serious hate crime.
ECHR obliged Azerbaijan to pay the applicants jointly, within three months from the date on which the judgment becomes final, £15,143. It has found no violation by Hungary.
