Lawyer Nazeli Vardanyan Proved It in Court in Budapest

Nazeli Vardanyan, a member of the Chamber of Advocates of Armenia, represented the interests of army officer Gurgen Margaryan's legal heir during the famous much-followed trial in Budapest.

On April 13, 2006, the court delivered a sentence of life imprisonment, with no pardon possible during the first 30 years, to Azerbaijani army office Ramil Safarov, who struck Margaryan dead with an axe on February 19, 2004 as the latter slept. On February 22 of this year, a Court of Appeals in Hungary upheld the verdict.

In the following interview, Nazeli Vardanyan reflects on the Hungarian court system, the specifics of court proceedings and the difficulties of a lawyer's life.

- What was it like working as a lawyer in Hungary?

-In Hungarian courts, just like in Armenia, only licensed lawyers can head a criminal case. So we had hired a Hungarian lawyer to represent our interests in court. According to the Hungarian legal code, the leading lawyer is allowed to have an assistant, so I was in court assisting our Hungarian lawyer. It was a difficult case – there was a language barrier because the court proceedings were in Hungarian throughout the trial. It was also psychologically a very disturbing case – it is unusual to see a case of someone being axed to death in the 21 st century; and it was also difficult because the case was politicized. Besides all that, I had to familiarize myself with the Hungarian legal code.

In contrast to Armenia, according to the Hungarian criminal code, the plaintiff is not one of the sides in the legal proceedings. We did not have the right to ask the defendant or witnesses questions directly or to intercede. When a witness is being questioned, you cannot ask him or her questions yourself; you have to do so either through the prosecutor, or through the judge. So we had to have the questions ready in writing, which we would then give to the prosecutor or the judge and they would decide whether or not to direct the question to the witness. It was the same if we wanted to intercede on behalf of a witness; we had to submit that in writing as well. Because of all this, we did a lot more work out of court, preparing material and documents. I had to prepare the questions beforehand and have them translated, which took up a lot of time.

- If a very important witness was on the stand and you wanted to question him, could you come up with the questions extempore and ask them?

- No, that was very difficult to do. That is why during each session I had to think ahead to the next, which could take place after an interval of 1-1.5 months. I would prepare questions and intercessions in this period and take them with me. The Hungarian lawyer's work was also complicated because of this, especially since the Azerbaijani side had politicized this court case extremely. They were linking this crime with the Karabakh conflict. The Hungarian lawyer, the prosecutor, and the judge were all unaware of the details of the Karabakh conflict; only we could present those facts. The Karabakh conflict was being discussed constantly throughout the trial, and that was why we had historian Hayk Demoyan on board.

- Is the lawyer responsible for collecting his or her own evidence, according to the Hungarian legal code?

- In Hungary, the legal process is also competitive, and the case is debated mainly between the prosecution and the defense. The prosecutor protects the victim's rights. We were left out of the process - although we were sitting in the plaintiff's corner, the case was being led by the prosecutor, in accordance with their legal code, and it was not required of the victim's side to be present in court. But in this case, if we had not been present, it might have been possible to gain an acquittal for Safarov, or perhaps a lighter sentence or even to transfer this court case to the political arena. Safarov's lawyer had only one aim – to politicize this case by connecting it with the Karabakh conflict. They wanted to argue that Safarov had committed the crime in a state of temporary insanity. During the second and third sessions with experts in forensic psychiatry, the psychiatrists presented Safarov as a patient with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. They said that he had seen the brutality of war at the age of 13 or 14 and had suffered from trauma because of it, which resurfaced in him when he met an Armenian. His lawyer admitted that what had occurred was murder, but argued that it had not been done in cold blood – simply buying an axe is not evidence of premeditation. They then said that Safarov had been in a state where he no longer understood his actions or their consequences. Four expert hearings were scheduled during the trial. The first one declared Safarov completely healthy, which is how it should have been, because he had received eight years training in Turkey and was one of the best in their officers' school. Besides this, he had described the details of the murder for four hours during his interrogation. After the third expert hearing, the psychiatrists declared him inculpable and he might have succeeded in avoiding punishment. Safarov's lawyer insisted that his client was from a different cultural background, which is why it would be impossible for those present to understand his mindset.

We saw the case in its legal aspect. We succeeded in proving that the defendant's side was presenting historical facts incorrectly. We proved with documents that in 1992 there had been Afghanmojahideens in Jebrail; that there had not been any peaceful civilians when Armenian forces entered that territory. It's true that Safarov was born in Jebrail, but he had moved to Baku in 1991 and then to Turkey in 1992 to study. We proved that Jebrail had been liberated in 1992-93, when he was already in Turkey, so he could not have been a first hand witness to war.

- Do you think the verdict would have been the same if you had not been present in court? Would the prosecution not have felt the same responsibility to prove the allegations?

- Their lack of knowledge of historical events would have prevented them from prosecuting effectively. They knew that a murder had been committed, but there are circumstances which can complicate the situation or lighten the punishment for the accused. In Ramil Safarov's case, there were four circumstances which suggested cold-blooded murder – he bought an axe with the intent of using it for murder, he committed the murder with excessive brutality, and the murder was committed, and there was also an attempt to kill another person, because of the national identity of the victim. It's true, the court in Budapest seemed determined to deliver a just verdict, but all that had to be proven first. Neither the lawyer nor the prosecutor could ask any questions pertaining to the Karabakh conflict. All that had to be proven historically with documents, and the prosecutor could not do that alone. Moreover, they were unaware that we have no relations with Azerbaijan. After the preliminary hearing, when I was reading through the material for the case, I noticed a document which stated that the prosecutor had decided to transfer the case to a court in Baku. In a period of one week, I managed to meet with high-ranking officials in Hungary and explained to them that we have no relations with Azerbaijan and could not protect the victim's rights there. They heard us out and sent the case to a court in the capital which dealt with exceptional criminal cases.

Safarov was convinced that the case would be transferred to Baku, where he would be freed. On June 19, when the case was transferred to a court in the Budapest, and his lawyer told him that the case would be heard in the Hungarian capital, Safarov had a hysteric fit and wounded staff members at the detention center. Another case was filed against him for mistreating the workers at the detention center. That case is currently being heard in court.

- In your opinion, were there any extra-judicial circumstances which affected the outcome of the case?

- During the days when the verdict was due, there was a lot of propaganda in Azerbaijan which urged people to follow Safarov's heroic example. We extracted an article from Hungarian websites which stated that Safarov was named Man of the Year in Azerbaijan, and presented this to the court. The judge said that he had not heard of any country where a murderer was made a national hero. This had a bad effect of their case.

In the Court of Appeals, the defendant's lawyer argued that the court had not taken into consideration the environment in which Safarov had grown up – killing an Armenian in his country was not considered murder. That coincided with the murder of Hrant Dink in Turkey on January 19. It was a similar case – once again, an attempt was made to cast the murderer in a hero's mold.

The judge's speech was very emotional but strict. He said that Safarov had not accepted Hungary's hospitality and had effectively slapped the Hungarian people in the face. The act had been called genocide during the preliminary hearing, and this was repeated twice during the trial. It was noted that Gurgen Margaryan was killed only because he was Armenian. This is considered a serious crime, because it is based on national discrimination. So a verdict was demanded of life imprisonment, without the possibility of pardon within the first 30 years. The judge defined Safarov's act as racism. The verdict also noted that in those countries, your national identity was enough to get you killed.