MP: HUNGARY INFLICTED DEVASTATING DAMAGE TO EUROPEAN VALUES
PanARMENIAN.Net
September 3, 2012 – 16:19 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net – 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;
Gyurk Andras, Member of the European Parliament; Deutsch Tamas,
Member of the European Parliament; Gal Kinga, Member of the European
Parliament; Glattfelder Bela, 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.