The decision to repatriate the convicted murderer of an Armenian soldier to Azerbaijan was the correct one, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told Parliament on Monday. The handover of Ramir Safarov – who was pardoned and feted as a national hero upon his return to Baku – sparked an international diplomatic incident at the end of August and prompted Armenia to sever ties with Hungary.
Safarov had been serving a 30-year jail term for using an axe to slay the soldier in his bed while both were attending a UN-sponsored language course in Budapest in 2004.
Socialist MP and former foreign minister László Kovács had asked Orbán to explain why the government had been satisfied with a pledge by Azerbaijan not to commute Safarov’s sentence, when the country made no specific pledge not to pardon him.