Hundreds Protest Pardon of Man Who Killed Armenian Military Officer
The rest of the world ignores the long running, low burn border feud.
Roughly 400 people protested Thursday outside the consulates of Hungary and Azerbaijan, decrying the release and pardon of an Azerbaijani soldier convicted of killing an Armenian military officer with an ax.
The murder of Gurgen Markarian occurred in 2004 at a military academy in Budapest set up by NATO.
The Azerbaijani soldier, Ramil Safarov, was convicted of the murder and sentenced to at least 25 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
He was extradited to Azerbaijan last month after officials there pledged to uphold his sentence, but upon arriving on his native soil, he was released and pardoned. The Armenian parliament subsequently suspended ties with Hungary. Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a violent conflict over disputed border territory for more than two decades.