Hungarian Constitutional Court President Apologizes to Armenian People

YEREVAN — The Hungarian court’s decision sentencing Azerbaijani officer Ramil Safarov to life imprisonment was not strict enough, Péter Paczolay, President of the Hungarian Constitutional Court, told reporters at the Armenian National Assembly, panorama.am reports.

The Hungarian official is in Armenia to attend the pan-European Conference on “The European Legal Standards of Rule of Law and the Scope of Discretion of Powers in the Member-States of the Council of Europe.”

Mr Paczolay said that Hungary extradited Safarov to Azerbaijan so that he would serve his imprisonment in that country, not be pardoned and released. The Hungarian official added that he cannot say anything on behalf of his country’s government since he is not familiar with the conditions of the extradition, and apologized to the Armenian people for the consequences of Hungary’s extradition of the convicted Azerbaijani axe-murderer.

The two-day pan-European conference kicked off in Yerevan on Monday. The conference is held within the framework of the Armenian Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. The event has brought together about 80 representatives from 32 countries and international organizations.