Armenian parliament member, head of the Armenian Delegation to EURONEST Parliamentary Assembly Vahan Hovhannisyan addressed a letter to Herczog Edit, Member of the European Parliament; Gyürk András, Member of the European Parliament; Deutsch Tamás, Member of the European Parliament; Gál Kinga, Member of the European Parliament; Glattfelder Béla, Member of the European Parliament; Gurmai Zita, Member of the European Parliament.

“I am writing this letter with regret, because I feel that the spirit of the longstanding friendship between the Armenian and Hungarian peoples is almost completely shattered by the event that took place recently,” Mr Hovhannisyan said.

“As you undoubtedly understand, I mean the extradition of Ramil Safarov to Azerbaijan, a Lieutenant in the Azerbaijani army, who was serving a life sentence in your country for the premeditated murder of the Armenian Lieutenant Gurgen Margaryan, in 2004 during a NATO “Partnership for Peace” program in Budapest.

As you know, Safarov was convicted for murdering Lieutenant Margaryan in his sleep. The brutal violence of Safarov’s cold-blooded, pre-planned axe murder – during which he nearly severed his innocent victim’s head – is matched only by his chilling lack of remorse or repentance for his crime.

During the last eight years Azerbaijani government officials, political leaders, prominent public figures more than once expressed their admiration by that heinous act. So, nobody in Hungary: neither the court, nor the authorities could doubt that if Safarov returned to Baku, he would, certainly, be welcomed, and his act of cowardly murder declared a victory and a source of national pride for the generations to come.

And that’s exactly what happened after your country decided to send Safarov to Baku, i.e. set him free.

I am not going to dwell now on the judicial side of Safarov’s extradition, which, in addition to representing a serious breach of justice in a clear case of homicide, will send a dangerous signal to the Azerbaijani government, emboldening it to continue inciting its own citizens to violence, and, more broadly, encouraging it to continue undertaking threats and actual acts of aggression against both Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.

The consequence of the actions of the Hungarian authorities was not only predictable; it was obvious, so they bear full responsibility for the fact that the murderer did not serve even ten years out of a life sentence; and for whatever excesses the militarist leadership of Azerbaijan will carry out as a result of the euphoria because of this release.

Regretfully, the negative impact of this incident will also cast a shadow on the standards and principles we tried to implement together in the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly and Eastern Partnership policy.

The damage done to the concept of common values we share with our European Partners is so devastating that I do not expect any late reaction can improve the moral disappointment and frustration caused by that.

But at least now, after the mean murderer is declared a national hero in Azerbaijan, the society in Hungary and other European countries must fully realize the reason why the Armenians in the Nagorno Karabakh will never agree to be under Azerbaijani rule,” he said.