Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin who is in Baku custody, said he had visited Nagorno Karabakh as a tourist. Russian Ria Novosti agency reported, during the hearing Lapshin pleaded not guilty. He refused to testify instead made a short statement.
“I am a blogger and have visited Nagorno Karabakh twice. I paid all my expenses myself, I didn’t’ apply to the Azerbaijani side while visiting Karabakh. I stayed at hotels and cannot recall their names. While being there, I didn’t meet with any representative of the Armenian authorities. I wrote articles through internet,” Lapshin said, as quoted by the agency.
To remind, the blogger was extradited from Belarus to Azerbaijan in February, where he was wanted after visiting the Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR) and criticizing the Azerbaijani leadership.
Azerbaijani prosecutors launched a criminal case into “repeated public anti-state calls” and “illegal crossing of Azerbaijan’s state border,” punishable with a prison term of five to eight years.
The extradition and persecution against Lapshin was widely slammed by international community as a gross violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of speech and movement.
