Spokespersons of EU High Representative Catherine Ashton and Commissioner Stefan Fule on the release of Ramil Safarov The spokespersons of Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice President of the Commission and Stefan Fule, European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy, issued the following statement today:
"The High Representative and Commissioner Fule are concerned by the news that the President of Azerbaijan has pardoned Azerbaijani army officer Ramil Safarov, who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Armenian Army officer Gurgen Margaryan in Budapest in 2004.
Ramil Safarov was transferred from Hungary to Azerbaijan on 31 August on the basis of an Azerbaijani request, in the framework of the Convention of Strasbourg on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons of 21 March 1983, to serve the rest of his sentence. EU representatives are in contact with the relevant authorities and will continue to follow the situation closely.
In the interest of regional stability and on-going efforts towards reconciliation, the High Representative and Commissioner Fule reiterate their call on Azerbaijan and Armenia to exercise restraint, on the ground as well as in public statements, in order to prevent an escalation of the situation." -0-
Politics
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On 4 February, the Baku Court of Appeal released former Russian judge Yelena Khakhaleva, who was arrested in Azerbaijan at the request of the Russian Prosecutor's Office.
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Afgan Sadygov, the head of the Azerbaijani website Azel.TV, who has been on a dry hunger strike since February 2 in the Tbilisi detention center, lost consciousness on Tuesday evening, his wife Sevinc Sadygova told Turan.
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On February 5, a preparatory hearing was held in the Baku Court for Serious Crimes, chaired by Vugar Ibrahimov, in the case of former diplomat Emin Ibrahimov. The main hearings are scheduled for February 12.
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The report on the investigation into the AZAL plane crash, published by the Ministry of Transport of Kazakhstan, is "preliminary and does not contain conclusions about the causes of the incident," a message from “Rosaviatsiya” – the Federal Air Transport Agency of Russia. “Rosaviatsiya” noted that the work of the commission will continue, and conclusions about the incident will be presented in the final report.
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