| Ramil Safarov | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 25, 1977 Jabrayil, Azerbaijan SSR |
| Allegiance | Azerbaijan |
| Service/branch | Azerbaijani Army |
| Rank | Lieutenant |
Ramil Safarov (Azerbaijani: Ramil Səfərov) was a lieutenant in the Azerbaijani Army who was convicted for the murder of Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan during a NATO Partnership for Peace program in 2004, in Budapest. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in Hungary.
He was born in 1977 in the town of Jabrayil. In February 2004, while attending a NATO Partnership for Peace program, Safarov was arrested by Hungarian police in connection for the murder of Armenian fellow participant Lieutenant Gurgen Margaryan. Safarov had snuck into Margaryan's dormitory and proceeded to hack him to death with an axe. The reason of the murder, according to the defense, was that the Margaryan had railed and insulted the Azerbaijani flag, although no witnesses were called to testify and corroborate this account.[1]
A Budapest policeman commented that the murder had been conducted "with unusual cruelty," adding "beside a number of knife wounds on his chest, the victim's head was practically severed from his body."[2]
A lower court (the Fővárosi Bíróság, or Metropolitan Court of Budapest) sentenced Safarov to life imprisonment on charges of premeditated murder with extreme cruelty.
While serving his sentence, Safarov has translated several novels by Hungarian authors into Azeri.[3]