YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 28, NOYAN TAPAN. The April 13, 2006 sentence of Budapest first instance court on case of RA Armed Forces Officer Gurgen Margarian's murder has come into force from February 22. According to the sentence, the murderer sentenced to life imprisonment, Azerbaijani Officer Ramil Safarov who was at Budapest investigation isolator should be moved to a reformatory of strict regime. Lawyer Nazeli Vardanian representing the interests of the aggrieved party reported this at the February 28 press conference. She informed the press conference that the complaint of R. Safarov's Hungarian defender Madyar Dorji was heard at Budapest Appeal Court on February 22. According to the complaint, though the first instance court examined the case very thoroughly, nevertheless, many violations were committed: four expertises were made, but when passing the sentence the court took as a basis only the defender's first testimony when the Azerbaijani Officer confessed that this was an aforethought murder, that unless he killed the Armenian officer at that moment, the murder would be committed at another place. R. Safarov had also said that he had become a serviceman in order to exterminate all Armenians of the world. M. Dorji declared at the court that his defendant gave the first evidence in Russian without lawyer's presence and did not understand what he was saying. At the same time, he said that Hungarians cannot understand why R. Safarov killed the Armenian Officer and why this is qualified in a different way in Azerbaijan and "to kill an Armenian is not considered as a crime there." Prosecutor Edit Bagi in his charge qualified the murder as a cruel, inhuman murder with many aggravating circumstances. "For us, it is very important to estimate the murder as a fact and not to assess to what culture R. Safarov belongs," the Prosecutor said. In the Prosecutor's words, R. Safarov was away from Azerbaijan in the years of war, he did not witness the war and none of his relatives perished in that war. Therefore, as the Hungarian Prosecutor said, the defendant could not suffer and get into stress when seeing an Armenian. In her speech made at the sitting Hungarian lawyer Gabriela Gaspar representing the interests of the aggrieved party said that R. Safarov had committed this murder for being heroized. In her words, the same is noticed in Turkey when they tried to heroize the criminal having committed the murder of Armenian journalist in Istanbul. "The strictest punishment should be kept to put an end to manifestations of genocide, for people not to be killed for their national belonging," G. Gaspar said. In N. Vardanian's words, "the Azerbaijanis have an opportunity to apply to Strasbourg court, which will be only favorable for us." "So, Azerbaijanis will show their cultural peculiarities in the center of Europe, that is, a murder committed on ethnic ground is not a crime," she said.

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