VERDICT EXPECTED IN TRIAL OF AZERBAIJANI ACCUSED OF MURDER AT NATO COURSE
AP Worldstream
Apr 13, 2006
A court in Hungary is expected to issue a verdict Thursday in the case
of an Azerbaijani officer accused of murdering an Armenian classmate
with an ax at a NATO training course in Budapest.
Lt. Ramil Safarov of Azerbaijan has confessed to hacking Lt. Gurgen
Markarian of Armenia to death with an ax in February 2004 in
a dormitory used by participants of a NATO Partnership for Peace
English language course in Budapest.
Police said Safarov confessed to the killing, claiming that the
conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia was at the root of his act.
The two neighboring, former Soviet republics remain at odds over
the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave within
Azerbaijan.
Safarov is scheduled to make his final statement Thursday morning
and the Budapest City Court is expected to announce its verdict in
the afternoon.
Prosecutors asked that Safarov be sentenced to life in prison, with
a 30-year minimum before any parole hearings.
Armenian-backed forces drove Azerbaijan’s army out of the ethnic
Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s.
A 1994 cease-fire ended the six-year war that killed 30,000 people
and left about 1 million homeless and the enclave is now under the
control of ethnic Armenians.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
