Armenia commemorates Gurgen Margaryan

PanARMENIAN.Net -
Armenia commemorates the 6th anniversary of the murder of Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan on February 19, 2010.



6 years ago today, 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 Partnership for Peace NATO-sponsored program.



During the first interrogation, Safarov motivated his actions as follows, “I do regret that I have killed no Armenian by that time... Army sent me to this course and I found out that there were 2 Armenians also participating. That’s when I felt hatred for the Armenians. At the beginning, they greeted me, by saying “Hello”, but I never answered them. And the reason why I killed them was the fact that they had passed by and smiled at us. That's when I decided to axe them in the sunrise...”



In accordance with Budapest District Court sentence dated April 13, 2006, Ramil Safarov was life imprisoned for murdering Gurgen Margaryan. On February 22, 2007, Budapest Court rejected the Azerbaijani military officer's appeal against a life sentence for the 2004 axe murder of the Armenian officer at the NATO’s Partnership for Peace training course in Budapest. The appeal court ruled that the decision brought by Budapest District Court against 30-year-old Lieutenant Ramil Safarov, should stand.