A PARDON IN BAKU CAUSES A DIPLOMATIC EARTHQUAKE
Transitions onLine
Sept 10 2012
Czech Rep.
Freedom and laurels greet a soldier who admitted hacking his Armenian
counterpart to death.
by Shahla Sultanova10 September 2012
BAKU | It was an otherwise unremarkable Friday afternoon, when breaking
news seemed to shake Azerbaijani society.
Ramil Safarov, a hero to many here, had unexpectedly returned home.
Safarov, 35, is an Azerbaijani military officer who was serving a life
sentence in Hungary for killing Armenian officer Gurgen Margarian
with an ax while the latter slept in February 2004. The two were at
a NATO training course in Budapest.
As news of his return burned across the media and social networks
on 31 August, and as Safarov’s plane touched down on home soil,
came another bombshell: he had received a pardon from Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliev.
Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a bitter conflict over
Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave located within the
territory of Azerbaijan. They went to war in the early 1990s and
a fragile cease-fire has been in place since 1994. Armenia-backed
troops occupy the enclave, while the army of Armenia holds several
Azerbaijani regions around Nagorno-Karabakh as a buffer zone.
The war left Azerbaijan with 1 million displaced people and cost 20
percent of its territory.
During his trial in Hungary, Safarov’s lawyer had said the officer
killed Margarian because the Armenian had wiped his shoes on the
Azerbaijani flag.
Though there were dissenting voices, Safarov’s release was generally
celebrated in Azerbaijan. People congratulated one another in the
street and online. Some companies threw impromptu parties, and some
religious communities said a prayer of thanksgiving for his return.
The independent Gun.az news agency celebrated the news with a cake.
Editor Emil Guliev said when the bakery heard why they were buying
the cake, it offered a 30 percent discount.
“It was something very unexpected for us. We didn’t have much hope
that he could come back. But here he is. He’s a citizen of our country,
he’s one of us. It’s impossible not to be happy,” Guliev said.
A journalist with 10 years’ experience, Guliev said he does not
approve of Safarov’s act, but the fact that the case grew out of his
country’s conflict with Armenia – and that the victim was Armenian –
overcomes issues of humanity and legality.
Safarov “lives in my country, speaks my language. That means a lot
to me,” Guliev said. “Besides, the killed Armenian was an officer
of the Armenian army that occupied our lands. The essence of this
case is that it is about Armenia. We can’t ignore that. Most of all,
that officer provoked [Safarov] by insulting his country.”
For its part, Budapest said a pardon was not what it had in mind
when it sent Safarov home. It said the extradition was in line with
an international convention on prisoner transfer and pointed to a
6 August letter from Vilayet Zahirov, Azerbaijan’s deputy justice
minister, to Hungary’s Justice Ministry stating that Azerbaijani law
allows only a court to “replace” a life sentence “with imprisonment
for a certain period” or parole after serving at least 25 years.
Armenia has suspended diplomatic relations with Hungary over Safarov’s
extradition. Ruben Mehrabyan, a political analyst at the Armenian
Center for Political and International Studies in Yerevan, said the
Hungarian leadership has discredited itself domestically and abroad
with the extradition.
Mehrabyan said Armenians are especially outraged by the pardon and
Safarov’s subsequent promotion from the rank of lieutenant to major.
“Armenia is mostly concerned that hatred toward Armenians is encouraged
by the state of Azerbaijan,” he said. “The Azerbaijani government
explicitly promotes killing as heroism. Only re-sentencing Safarov
could ease the tension.”
Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian strongly condemned Baku’s
actions in a 2 September meeting in Paris with representatives of
countries that have been leading peace talks between Azerbaijan
and Armenia.
Officials in the United States, the European Union, NATO, Russia,
France, and Slovakia also condemned the pardon, which diplomats and
analysts say will complicate peace efforts.
Jale Sultanli, a doctoral candidate at George Mason University’s School
for Conflict Analysis and Resolution in Virginia, and co-founder of
Caucasus Edition, a journal on Nagorno-Karabakh, said the pardon
“deepened the mistrust and entrenched the existing stereotypes,”
that the two sides have of each other.
“Creating and maintaining relationships, trust, and collaboration
across the conflict is already challenging as it is,” she said.
Crucially, Sultanli said it could alienate the civil society groups
and ordinary citizens on both sides who have been working for peace.
“It can also make positions on both sides more uncompromising, making
cooperation and reconciliation difficult,” she said. “We are already
hearing more uncompromising positions on issues from Armenian analysts
following the events.”
On 1 and 2 September, websites of several mainstream news agencies
in Azerbaijan as well as online databases belonging to the Justice
Ministry were hacked. Ali Hasanov, a top adviser to Aliev, pointed
the finger at Armenia, and Armenian media reported that the attacks
had originated in their country.
The Azerbaijani Embassy in Budapest received a death threat against
its employees in an email, according to the Azertagj government-owned
news agency, and Baku requested stepped-up protection for its embassies
from the host countries’ security services.
Meanwhile, Safarov has not been seen on television or in public since
the day of his return. His brother, Ilgar Safarov, said his family
has not seen Safarov since he left home on 1 September to attend his
promotion ceremony at the Defense Ministry.
“He only visited us once, for 10 minutes,” Ilgar Safarov said. “Then
he packed his stuff and left. … He’s not allowed to see us, we’re
not allowed to see him. We were told that it’s for security reasons.”
In addition to the pardon and promotion, Safarov was given a house
and back pay for the eight years that he spent in custody in Hungary.
LEGAL SHORTCUTS
An international convention to which Azerbaijan is a signatory says
those convicted of crimes abroad should have the chance to serve
their sentences in their home country. It also allows countries to
grant pardons in keeping with their own laws. But Khalid Bagirov,
a member of the Azerbaijan Lawyers Association, said the country’s
constitution permits a presidential pardon for someone serving a life
sentence only after the inmate has served at least 10 years. Safarov
was convicted in 2006.
“Azerbaijan was supposed to continue the enforcement of the sentence
immediately or through a court or administrative order as required by
Article 9 [of the extradition convention]. But that did not happen,”
Bagirov said.
Bagirov predicted that after these violations, no other country would
trust Azerbaijan enough to extradite prisoners there.
Yashar Jafarli, a defense expert who heads the Azerbaijan Public
Association for Security and Defense, said giving Safarov a military
promotion raises many questions.
“First of all, Safarov’s case should have been discussed in court,
and a decision should have been made on how Azerbaijan would recognize
him. As a criminal or not?” Jafarli said, adding that Azerbaijan’s
law forbids someone who has been imprisoned or sentenced to life
in prison from continuing in the military. “In that case, how can
Safarov become a major?”
Still, those who have spoken publicly against the pardon have been
pilloried.
Arzu Geybullayeva, a popular blogger, likened the news of the
extradition and pardon to a bomb dropping on the country’s social
networks. She said Safarov’s return was treated with a sense of
victory, even more so than in the print media.
“I was one of the few who condemned Safarov’s pardon. I wasn’t shocked
by the negative – to put it mildly – reaction against me on Twitter
because this is how the average young person thinks in Azerbaijan
– that Safarov is a hero, should be treated like a hero, and that
everyone should follow his example,” she said.
Geybullayeva blamed the widespread thirst for reprisal on the
government, which she said has fed its citizens anti-Armenian
propaganda for years.
Politicians of all stripes welcomed Safarov’s extradition, though
Ali Kerimli, leader of the opposition Popular Front Party, said the
president had taken unacceptable legal shortcuts in granting the
pardon, which he called a public relations stunt.
“Also, they’re making [Safarov] a hero, which irritates those people
who lost their loved ones fighting on the front line and those who
fought in the war to protect their lands,” Kerimli said.
He suggested that the money given to Safarov was especially
inappropriate, given the modest sums the government pays to disabled
veterans or survivors of the war dead.
“We have a lot of heroes who are neglected by the government,”
Kerimli said.
Zahid Oruj, a pro-government member of parliament and deputy leader
of the nationalist Motherland Party, was one of the founders of a
committee to promote Safarov’s cause. He predicted the case would
boost patriotic feeling in Azerbaijan.
“It will motivate patriotism to a significant extent. … After Ramil
Safarov is back in the Azerbaijani army, more people will choose
him as a model, as a hero,” Oruj said. “Ramil Safarov is a symbol
of a warrior who fights against the Armenians, who have historically
always insulted Azerbaijanis.”
Oruj was echoed by Mubariz Gurbanli, a member of parliament from
Aliev’s New Azerbaijan Party, who told reporters that Safarov’s
release is a logical expression of gratitude to Azerbaijani patriots.
For critics, such arguments overlook the heart of the case: the
premeditated killing of one man while he slept by another.
“For me Safarov is not a hero. What he did was a crime,” said Arastun
Orujlu, a political analyst and director of the East-West Research
Center in Baku. Like Kerimli, the opposition politician, Orujlu said
the administration is treating the episode like a public relations
campaign.
“The tragedy of two people, both Ramil and the killed Armenian officer,
cannot be used as an advertisement,” he said. “It is unethical,
it is immoral.”
Shahla Sultanova is a freelance journalist in Baku.
http://www.tol.org/client/article/23356-a-pardon-in-baku-causes-a-diplomatic-earthquake.html