A Pardon in Baku Causes a Diplomatic Earthquake

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.”