Azeri assassin Safarov fulfilled state order, killing Armenian officer – lawyer

August 30, 2012 - 16:07 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan’s assassin Ramil Safarov fulfilled Azerbaijan’s state order, lawyer Nazeli Vardanyan said.

“I am of the same opinion as I was eight years ago. It was a state order,” she told a press conference in Yerevan Thursday, Aug 30.

According to her, Azeri authorities from the very beginning were actively involved in the lawsuit, trying hard to mitigate Safarov’s sentence.

“Azerbaijan even established an embassy in Budapest, with representatives of Azeri and Turkish embassies present at court hearings,” Ms. Vardanyan said, adding that Safarov was later announced a national hero in Azerbaijan.

In this context, she quoted Azerbaijan’s Ombudsman Elmira Suleymanova and Azeri President Ilham Aliyev as saying, “Safarov must set an example for the young generation” and “Armenians must be killed in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Lieutenant of the Armenian Armed Forces Gurgen Margaryan, 26, was hacked to death, while asleep, by a fellow Azerbaijani participant, lieutenant Ramil Safarov, in Budapest during a three-month English language course in the framework of NATO-sponsored Partnership for Peace program.

On April 13, 2006, Budapest District Court sentenced Safarov to life in prison for murdering Margaryan. On February 22, 2007, Budapest Court rejected the Azerbaijani military officer's appeal against the verdict, precluding possibility of pardon for the initial 30 years.

By a decree of then-President of Armenia, Robert Kocharian, officer Margaryan was awarded with a posthumous Medal for Courage on February 19, 2005.