EX-PREZ’S OFFICE WRONGS ALIYEV OVER “TERRORIST PARDONING IN ARMENIA” CLAIM

News | 13.09.12 | 16:32

The Office of Armenia’s former president Robert Kocharyan has
refuted Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s recent allegations that
a convicted terrorist was pardoned by the government in Yerevan upon
extradition over a decade ago.

Kocharyan’s office said Aliyev is trying to find justification for his
own decision to pardon a confessed axe-murderer of an Armenian, Ramil
Safarov, upon the latter’s extradition from Hungary last month. The
development angered the government in Yerevan leading to Armenia’s
suspending its diplomatic ties with Hungary and demanding that its
international partners condemn the “Azerbaijani-Hungarian” deal.

In its statement Kocharyan’s office, in particular, said:

“On September 12, news agencies disseminated reports about the meeting
of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev with the ambassadors of OSCE
member states in Gabala. The reports said that at the meeting Aliyev
said that in 2001 the President of Armenia allegedly pardoned an
Armenian terrorist Karapetyan, who was convicted to life imprisonment
in France and was extradited to Armenia the same year.

“The statement doesn’t correspond to reality. This story is about
Varouzhan Karapetyan, who, being a citizen of Lebanon at the time,
was not extradited but was pardoned by French authorities in 2001 and
only after that he moved to the Republic of Armenia for permanent
residence. Detailed reports about these events are still available
on Internet and it is not difficult to find.

“Thus, we can state that trying to justify Ramil Safarov’s pardoning
the president of Azerbaijan either deliberately distorts historical
facts or is unaware of the recent past.”

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress