Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

The plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Friday discussed the case of Azerbaijani military officer Ramil Safarov, who was recently transferred to his home country after being jailed for killing an Armenian officer while in a state of emotional distress in Hungary in 2004.

Heated discussions took place on the issue at PACE but no documents were passed.

Members of the Azerbaijani delegation to the PACE addressed the discussions along with European and Armenian parliamentarians. The Azerbaijani MPs stressed that it is wrong to treat the matter beyond the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Since a PACE bureau commissioned the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights to scrutinize the case, chair of the committee Christopher Chope provided information regarding the issue.

Chope informed participants about the background of the problem, the killing of Armenian officer Gurgen Markaryan by Ramil Safarov in Budapest, Safarov's subsequent extradition and pardoning.

Safarov hails from Jabrayil, one of Azerbaijan's regions under Armenian occupation. Safarov, 35, who participated in NATO exercises in 2004 in Hungary, was charged with the murder of the Armenian officer, who insulted the Azerbaijani flag. A Budapest court sentenced Safarov to life imprisonment without the right to parole for 30 years. On August 31, Hungary extradited Safarov to Azerbaijan, where he was pardoned by President Ilham Aliyev.

Giving a legal assessment to the issue, Chope said international and Azerbaijani legal norms enable extradition and pardoning of Safarov.

Though European MPs condemned Safarov's extradition and pardoning, they noted that Azerbaijan and Hungary complied with all the regulations of the relevant Strasbourg convention, and the case was handled in line with international law.

European MPs said more attention to the moral side of the question is needed. They also warned that the case might exacerbate the relations between the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Though it had been recommended not to discuss the Safarov case in the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, most of the European parliamentarians touched on the long-standing conflict and expressed hope for its speedy solution.

Hungarian lawmakers in their speeches said Hungary has taken into account the moral and human aspects of the case.

PACE co-rapporteur on Azerbaijan Pedro Agramunt expressed regret over the matter. He noted that Armenia occupied 20% of Azerbaijani territory and that hundreds of thousands of people became refugees and IDPs, referring to the aftermath of the 1990s war between the two South Caucasus neighbors.

Armenian and French deputies put forward a hard-line stance, calling on PACE and the Council of Europe to impose specific sanctions against Azerbaijan in connection with the Safarov case.

Member of Azerbaijani delegation to PACE Aydin Abbasov said that Armenians intend to exert pressure on Azerbaijan by politicizing this issue at the Assembly. Abbasov spoke in detail about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the occupation policy of Armenia, the suffering caused by the conflict, and stressed the importance of a speedy solution of the conflict.

Turkey's Mevlut Cavusoglu, a former president of PACE, said Armenia has always attempted to disrupt the activity of the PACE's subcommittee on Nagorno-Karabakh.

According to Cavusoglu, PACE should focus its attention on the occupation of Azerbaijani territory, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the Khojaly genocide of Azerbaijanis, if it deems human rights important.

Cavusoglu added that "this shows that the PACE approach towards these issues is equivocal".