The Office of Armenia's second President Robert Kocharyan has commented on Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's allegations concerning the pardoning of Varuzhan Karapetyan.
"On September 12, news agencies released statements on the Gabala-hosted meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and the ambassadors to the OSCE member states. During the meeting, Aliyev reportedly said that in 2001 the Armenian president granted pardon to an Armenian terrorist, a certain Karapetyan, sentenced to life imprisonment in France and extradited to Armenia later in the year," the Office said in a statement.
"The information is fabricated and does not correspond to reality.
This refers to the then Lebanese citizen Varuzhan Karapetyan who was pardoned [rather than extradited] by France and later transferred to Armenia for permanent residence.
This information can easily be found on the Internet with all the details.
Thus, we can record that in an attempt to justify the pardoning to Ramil Safarov, Azerbaijan's president either deliberately distorts historical facts or is unaware of developments that occurred in the not so distant past," reads the statement.
