Azernews.Az

By Laman Ismayilova

Blogger Alexander Lapshin, who illegally visited Azerbaijan`s Armenia-occupied lands has been extradited from Belarus to Azerbaijan, as a plane carrying him touched down at Baku`s Heydar Aliyev International Airport this night.

Helped by his accomplices in the occupied territories, Lapshin, a citizen of several countries, paid a number of visits to Azerbaijan`s occupied lands, where he voiced support for "independence" of the illegal regime, and made public calls against Azerbaijan`s internationally recognized territorial integrity.

He was handed over by the Belarusian law enforcement bodies to Azerbaijani special services.

Lapshin violated the laws on state border and passports of Azerbaijan by visiting the country`s occupied territories in April 2011 and October 2012. With a view to promote the illegal regime internationally, on his puerrtto.livejournal.com blog, he included unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh as an "independent" state, together with Azerbaijan and Armenia, in the list of countries that he has travelled to. Lapshin also made public calls against Azerbaijan`s sovereignty.

Given these facts, Major Crimes Investigative Committee of the Office of the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General charged Lapshin under articles 281.2 (public calls against the state) and 318.2 (illegal trespass on the state border of the Republic of Azerbaijan) and announced him internationally wanted.

Demanded by Azerbaijan, Lapshin was arrested by the Belarusian law enforcement bodies.

Deputy prosecutor general of Belarus Alexei Stuk issued a ruling on Lapshin’s extradition to Azerbaijan in late January 2017. Later, the Minsk City Court upheld this decision.

The Supreme Court of Belarus on February 7 rejected the complaint filed by the blogger’s defendant regarding his extradition to Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan and Armenia for over two decades have been locked in conflict, which emerged over Armenian territorial claims. Since the 1990s war, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions. The UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal, but they have not been enforced to this day.

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