I glanced through a Gazeta.ru item about a group of young men in St. Pete killing another young man today, with - of all things - axes. Someone saw them doing it and called the police, but it was too late. The man they killed, Andrei Silantyev, b. 1977, was a Mining Institute instructor.
Crime and punishment, I thought. And: I'm so happy I'm not in St. Pete anymore.
Within half an hour, I was looking through Blogrel, a blog about Armenia, and came upon an entry about Lt. Ramil Safarov, an Azeri, being tried in Hungary for the 2004 murder of Lt. Gurgen Margaryan, an Armenian. Both were attending the NATO-sponsored Partnership for Peace English Language program in Budapest and lived in the same dorm. One night, Safarov entered Margaryan's room and killed him with an axe.
There's a site about it, The Budapest Case, complete with the account of the murder, the history of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, the Azeri officials' responses to the case, the transcripts of Safarov's confession and Margaryan's roommate's testimony, and more.
Here's the axe part, from the gruesome and horribly translated confession transcript:
For the question I would like to say that whole thing goes back to 1988 Armenian-Karabahi War, after which there was cease-fire, but nobody kept this cease-fire, but the very tragedy that I was talking about happened in 1992 February 26. At that time Armenian soldiers attacked the Karabki Hodzani* area, where were only civil citizens, particularly children and women and old people and around 8000 people were killed. This is my blood; I called them relatives in the future. Armenians occupied my place of birth for 1 year in 1993, August 25. This is also memorable as it happened on the date of my birth. I don’t know how many people were killed at that time, but even though it’s huge number. That was the time when I lost part of my close relatives as well. I applied to the army in 1991, this was a soldier secondary school, after 1 year I received further training in Turkey, where I received certificate (secondary and high education). The only motivation for me for fight against Armenians and to kill as many as possible in the fight. Me, as being azeri soldier, took weapon in order to protect my home, and there were other reasons as well, such as that after the collapse of the Soviet Union the army was destroyed and I felt that new army needs me.
[...]
My army sent me to this training and being here I have to face the fact that two Armenian were learning with me and I have to say that because of personal effectiveness the feeling of animosity grow up in me. In the beginning we were greeting each other, rather to say they said hi to me, but I didn’t accept it and curiosity in the whole thing was that when they walked close to me they were mumbled something in Armenian and laughed at me. That was the time when I decided that I will kill these two persons, the Armenians, I will cut their head off. The reason for this is that Armenians kill Azerbaijanians in the same way. What I already mentioned – the 8000 people carnage happened this way by Armenians. I didn’t plan the murder of the two Armenian at that day, but just at Ferbuary 26, taking into consideration an anniversary, but because of that laugh at me the feeling of animosity became bigger and bigger and that’s why I decided that that day in the morning I kill both of them. That’s why yesterday, at the 18th, around 19.00 I bought an axe near to Tesco at Nepstadion. I decided next to axe, because however I had a knife, I rather though I will not use that, because if I pierce them through by the knife, they may shout, shout for help, but if I hit their head by the axe, they loose their consciousness and will not be able to shout for help.
[...]
The handle of the axe was around 1 meter long and the iron part was red, color of the light tree.
[...]
After I bough the axe, after 19.00, I returned to my accommodation at Hungaria krt. At room number 219/A I was alone, because my room mate – Ukrainian soldier traveled home, because of the death of one of his relatives. I hide axe, the knife and the honing stone under my bed case. After this I did my English homework, I closed my door with key and starter to sharp, after that I went out to the hall to have a cigarette, in the bath. I was up till 5 a.m. and I haven’t slept at all and then I grabbed the axe and I put the knife into my right pocket. The reason for choosing this early time, because according to my knowledge this is the time, when sleeping is the deepest, when they do not wake up for small noise, and I also have to be sure the place where the person that I wanted to kill was sleeping, because his room mate is the Hungarian citizenship. I didn’t want to heart him, because he is really nice guy. [...]
Some "partnership for peace" they got there...
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