An Azerbaijani army officer has been jailed for life for murdering an Armenian while the two were taking a Nato course in English in Hungary.
Lt Ramil Safarov confessed to hacking Lt Gurgen Markarian to death with an axe in February 2004 in a dormitory used by Partnership for Peace trainees.
The Budapest court sentenced Safarov to life in prison, with a 30-year minimum term before any parole hearings.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have been bitter rivals since a war in the 1980s-90s.
Verdict welcomed
Safarov, 29, showed little emotion as Judge Andras Vaskuti read out the sentence.
He had claimed that he had been driven to his act by the plight of fellow Azerbaijanis, including close family relatives, in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
He also said he had been provoked by what he called the insulting behaviour of Lt Markarian towards the Azerbaijani flag.
But the judge ruled that the murder was pre-meditated and had been carried out with extreme cruelty.
Had his fellow officers not restrained him, the judge added, Safarov would have killed a second Armenian officer as well.
A lawyer representing the victim's family welcomed the sentence as a "good decision for the Hungarian court and for [Armenian] society".
Safarov's lawyer said he planned to appeal against the verdict.
^ Back to top | BBC Sport Home | BBC Homepage | Contact us | Help | ©
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~17~RS~)