By Nickolaos Angelis
Budapest, January 2004.
The 26-year-old Ramil Safarov, together with one other officer from Azerbaijan, went to Budapest Hungary, to take part within the three-month English language programs, organized by NATO‘s Partnership for Peace program for navy personnel from every of the previous Soviet states. Two Armenian officers, a 25-year-old Gurgen Margaryan and Hayk Makuchyan, additionally participated on this program.
On the night of February 18, Safarov purchased an axe and a honing stone at Tesco, close to Ferenc Puskás Stadium. He took them within the bag to his dormitory room on the Zrínyi Miklós Nationwide Protection College, the place all of the course members had been staying. Safarov’s roommate had returned to his homeland, Ukraine, due to the funeral of certainly one of his kinfolk. He hid the axe, the knife and the honing stone below his mattress case. He was up until 5 a.m. and he had not slept in any respect. As he admitted, the explanation for selecting this early hour is as a result of based on his information that is the time when sleeping is the deepest, when folks don’t get up, not even from a small noise. His first focused sufferer was Margaryan as a result of his room was nearer to the assassin’s room and secondly as a result of he determined to start with the extra muscular and extra athletic individual and to complete his carnage with the bodily weaker man and so with the much less capability of resistance.
At round 5:00 am on February 19, Safarov took the axe and went to Margaryan’s room, which he was sharing along with his Hungarian roommate, Balázs Kuti. The door of their room was not locked. As he turned on the sunshine, the Armenian turned to his again, making an attempt to open his eyes, however at the moment Safarov hit him on his brow with the flat aspect of the axe. At the moment , the Hungarian awakened and begged Safarov to spare his life, one thing that apparently occurred as a result of based on the killer, that was a enterprise strictly between Armenians and Azeris. Then he turned the axe to the sharp aspect and aimed on the center of Margaryan’s neck, arm and leg.
Afterwards, Safarov headed for the room of Makuchyan, the opposite Armenian pupil, with the intention of attacking him additionally, however discovered his door locked.He shouted out Makuchyan’s title in a threatening voice and in addition shouted “Come out, regardless of the place you cover, I’ll discover you” in Russian.
Safarov then tried to interrupt the door with the axe, however, by this time, the scholars within the neighboring rooms already awakened (one Uzbek and one Albanian), went out to the hall and tried to influence him to cease. Quickly after, the Hungarian police, summoned by Balázs Kuti, arrived and arrested Safarov on the scene.
Throughout his interrogation, Safarov said that he determined to make use of an axe, as a result of though he had a knife, he relatively thought not utilizing that, as a result of if he pierced the victims via by the knife, they might have shouted for assist. As an alternative, hitting their head the axe, would trigger them lose consciousness.
Following that, he additionally said:
“If there have been extra Armenians in school and if I had the chance I might not solely attempt to kill two individuals, however relatively, I might commit the crime in opposition to all. After I completed I lit a cigarette. I used to be smoking, after which I threw it. First, it fell on the chest of the Armenian, then from there onto the bedclothes. Since I hate them a lot and I used to be ready for revenge for thus lengthy it was a reduction for me. So long as I didn’t care about him it didn’t matter whether or not I threw the cigarette onto the bottom, or on his mattress or into his eyes. My want was that since he’s an Armenian his mom would cry as a lot as our mom cried after they misplaced their youngster. The entire thing was simply revenge.”
Questioned about his motives in the course of the interrogation, Safarov said:
“I remorse that I hadn’t killed any Armenian earlier than this. The military despatched me to this coaching and right here I learnt that two Armenians had been taking the identical course as us. I have to say that hatred in opposition to Armenians grew inside me. At first, we had been greeting one another, or relatively they saying “hello” to me however I didn’t reply. The rationale why I dedicated the homicide was that they handed by and smiled in our face. At that second, I made a decision to kill them.”
Based on Balázs Kuti, the Hungarian roommate of the sufferer, on the very starting of the language programs, when the scholars received acquainted, there was a dialog about totally different worldwide points, however no one spoke of it afterwards. Kuti additionally mentioned that he had not observed any pressure within the relationship between Margaryan and the Azerbaijani officers.
When the case went to trial, Safarov’s protection asserted that the homicide was dedicated as a result of Margaryan had insulted the Azerbaijani flag. This clarification later underwent a number of variations within the press in Azerbaijan and amongst his defenders. It was claimed that Margaryan and/or Makuchyan had urinated on the Azerbaijani flag; used it to wash and wipe their footwear; and had performed an audio recording of voices of struggling Azerbaijani girls and ladies. Regardless of the plain exaggerated nature of those claims, Safarov didn’t point out any of this in both his interrogation or his court docket trial and made it very clear he killed Margaryan simply because he was an Armenian. No witnesses had been ever referred to as in the course of the trial to corroborate these allegations of harassment in court docket and prosecution legal professionals strongly disputed that that they had taken place. Regardless of the shortage of proof, the Azerbaijani media, together with state-owned media retailers, have circulated the flag allegation to show Safarov right into a nationwide hero. Thus, in the course of the years of his imprisonment in Hungary there was a large wave of help in Azerbaijan for a “nationwide hero” that was endorsed by many public organizations calling the prosecution of Safarov “unjust”.
The protection additionally claimed that Safarov was mentally sick when committing the homicide; nonetheless, the forensic medical examination upheld by the decide, confirmed that “Safarov was sane and conscious of the implications of his act“.
On April 13, 2006, a Hungarian court docket sentenced Safarov to life imprisonment with no proper of enchantment for 30 years. The decide, András Vaskuti, cited the premeditated nature and brutality of the crime and the truth that Safarov confirmed no regret for his deeds as the explanations for the sentence. Handing down a life sentence, the decide significantly emphasised that “the homicide of a sleeping man in peace time is at all times a criminal offense and can’t be an act of heroism”.
Throughout his imprisonment in 2011, Szabolcs Voros, a Hungarian journalist met Assassin Ramil Safarov and interviewed him. What shocked him most, was the excessive intelligence of Safarov who translated a number of Hungarian novels into Azeris; certainly one of these was the basic Hungarian novel “The Paul Road Boys” that takes place in Budapest of nineteenth century and has to do with the rivalry between two gangs of boys, certainly one of which is described pretty much as good and the opposite as dangerous. In his query to Safarov about which group he supported as a reader, Safarov replied the nice chief, the nice group was his favourite.
After serving eight years of the life sentence, Safarov was extradited below the framework pointers of the 1983 Strasbourg Conference on the Switch of Sentenced Individuals and was despatched to Azerbaijan on August 31, 2012, to serve the remainder of his sentence in his house nation.
Whereas swift to imprison peaceable home dissidents, the authoritarian regime of Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev, was generously working in direction of the discharge of the felony, by reportedly showering Hungary with an as a lot as $3.8 billion mortgage provide, enabled by the Caspian’s power riches – though Hungarian PM Viktor Orban denied it. This secured Ramil Safarov’s extradition – and de facto launch – from Hungary.
On his arrival in Baku, Safarov was pardoned, promoted to Main, given again pay for the eight years he had spent in jail and was awarded a home, suggesting that Margaryan’s brutal homicide based mostly on his ethnicity was, retroactively, a state-sponsored hate crime.
After arriving in Baku he visited Martyrs’ Lane to put flowers on the tomb of Azerbaijan’s former president Heydar Aliyev and he additionally laid flowers on the Everlasting Flame monument the place there’s a monument included within the reminiscence of the victims of Khojaly Bloodbath, a bloody incident that occurred on 26 February 1992 (And that’s the reason Safarov needed to kill the Armenians officers on twenty sixth February , as an act of Anniversary however the loss of life of his Ukrainian roommate’s relative modified his plans). Until at the present time, there’s a particular part devoted to R. Safarov on the President of Azerbaijan web site.
On 26 Might 2020, the European Court docket of Human Rights rendered a chamber judgment in Makuchyan and Minasyan v. Azerbaijan and Hungary. The Court docket discovered that though Azerbaijan had clearly endorsed Safarov’s acts it couldn’t be held accountable below the stringent requirements of worldwide legislation which required a State to “acknowledge” such acts as its personal”. (State Accountability)
The Court docket held, unanimously, that Azerbaijan was to pay the candidates, two Armenian nationals, Mr Hayk Makuchyan (the survivor colleague of the sufferer) and Mr Samvel Minasyan, collectively, 15,143.33 kilos sterling (GBP).
Based on authorized consultants: “From the standpoint of the event of the authorized requirements, and based mostly on the details of the case, the failure of the Court docket to discover a breach by Hungary for its lack of due diligence and reliance on imprecise diplomatic assurances will solid an extended shadow and in addition in respect of the procedural limb of Article 2 ECHR, the Court docket has implied that clear diplomatic assurances within the context of switch of prisoners aren’t required. The comparatively low due diligence customary, which it has adopted on this regard, might have a large affect on future prisoner switch selections.”
LEGACY
Armenia and Azerbaijan are combating over Nagorno-Karbakh/Artsakh because the late Eighties. The countless ongoing battle on this area is an element that explains the deep hatred that appears to be rooted in folks’s bones of each nations.
In 2013, the well-known Azerbaijani author Akram Aylisli revealed his novel “Stone Desires”. The guide tells concerning the atrocities in the course of the Armenian pogroms in Azerbaijan in 1990 and in addition discusses the potential for coexistence between Azerbaijanis and Armenians.This novel grew to become the topic of particular dialogue within the parliament of Azerbaijan, the place it was unanimously condemned. On 5 February 2013, Aylisli’s son was dismissed from the Customs Committee and the author’s spouse, likewise, from the kids’s library the place she had labored as director for 30 years. On 7 February, Akram Aylisli was disadvantaged of the title of “Folks’s Author of Azerbaijan” and the state pension by a decree of President Ilham Aliyev. Furthermore, Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Schooling, determined to take away Aylisli’s essays from college textbooks and the pro-government Fashionable Musavat get together introduced a reward for whoever cuts off the author’s ear. Earlier, on January 31, a gaggle of younger folks gathered close to the author’s home (reportedly, from the youth department of the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Occasion) who had been burning Aylisli’s portraits and chanting “Akram, get in another country!”. Later, there was a rally within the author’s native village. These gathered there chanted “Traitor!” and “Demise to Akram!” .
On February 26, 2015, a small group of workers and supporters of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Washington, DC repeatedly chanted the title “Ramil Safarov,” in an obvious try to intimidate members at an Armenian Youth Federation organized vigil marking the twenty fifth anniversary of the Baku pogroms.
Extra just lately, there was the struggle of 2020, when Azerbaijan attacked Artsakh with Turkish endorsement and help. The aftermath of the 44 days struggle (so-called Second Nagorno-Karabakh Struggle) was the Azerbaijani victory. After the struggle, a morbid “trophy park” appeared in Baku, wherein there was an “exhibition” of the helmets of murdered Armenians.
THE ROLE OF HUNGARY
The current Russian invasion of Ukraine has resulted in a renewed EU-Azerbaijan give attention to power as a result of the truth that Azerbaijan performs the position of an vital fossil gas provider to interchange imports from Russia. And, in spite of everything, the EU is Azerbaijan’s principal buying and selling associate, and continues to be Azerbaijan’s main export vacation spot and second largest import market whereas the EU considers Azerbaijan a “strategic associate”.
Almost about Hungary-Turkey relations in 2023, it was agreed to raise bilateral relations to Enhanced Strategic Partnership stage. Moreover, Hungary has observer standing within the Group of Turkic States, which is a corporation that serves the Pan-Turanic and Pan-Turkic Neo-Ottoman visions and wherein Turkey and Azerbaijan are full members. At this level we have now to say that each Hungarians and Turks are sharing a historic widespread previous. They originated from North and Central Asia respectively after which they migrated westward in numerous eras. It’s believed that the Hungarians are an Uralic inhabitants and partially Turkic. Coincidentally, Orban (or City) was the title of the Hungarian engineer who solid large-caliber artillery for the Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453, which proved to be a decisive weapon for the seize of town. Briefly, the Turkish Republic has adopted the identical cynical path as Azerbaijan by glorifying and restoring financially the assassin of Solomos Solomou, Kenan Akın (who grew to become Minister) and the provocateur of 1955 false flag operation in Thessaloniki (who grew to become Mayor) that result in the pogroms of the Greek-Orthodox minority of Constantinople.
In September 2012, the identical 12 months that Safarov was despatched to his homeland, the Kipest district of Budapest (which has a longtime brotherhood with the Turkish metropolis of Pendik) had a brand new sq. named after Kemal Atatürk and a statue of him was erected. That precipitated protests from native Armenians and Greeks who thought-about it a provocation. In December 2022, Armenia and Hungary agreed to revive diplomatic relations and to nominate non-resident ambassadors, following a 10-year break ensuing from the Budapest homicide.
The underlying query is whether or not the EU can ignore instances because the humanitarian scenario within the Artsakh the place humanitarian corridors had been blocked by Azeri militias and there was a rising fear over the chance of famine within the area. In the meantime Orban continues to be endorsing an intolerant democracy for his nation. Extra just lately, on September 19, 2023, Azerbaijan launched a full scale assault; mockingly these corridors function a gap in an effort to full the ethnic cleaning of the Artsakh area. As regards the stance of the EU, Hungary has blocked a joint assertion by the European Union which condemned Azerbaijan. The Armenian enclave of Artsakh inside Azerbaijan has fallen contemplating that the president of “Artsakh Republic” subsequently signed a decree to dissolve all establishments of the republic by 1 January 2024 and as of 1 October 2023, nearly your entire inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh has fled to Armenia. Subsequent, a brand new strategic goal is to be set regarding the integration of the enclave of Nakhchivan in Azerbaijan, a proven fact that together with the demographic decline in Armenia , will put in peril its sustainability, 100 years after the tip of Armenian Genocide (1915-1923) and can open the Zangezur hall (that unites the primary nation with the enclave) and with it; the best way to actualization of the Turkish-inspired pan-Turanian ideology.
Safarov’s case is a criminal offense that reminds us that ethnically-motivated violence will not be solely acceptable, but in addition laudable and washable by some State-Actors. Thus, Europe has to surprise if it will be clever to tolerate the crimes that generate new crimes on the altar of fleeting earnings from the cooperation with these States.
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