Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8
By Elmira Tariverdiyeva – Trend:
On the day of Alexander Lapshin’s extradition to Azerbaijan, Russia gave a citizen of Azerbaijan to Ukraine within the same convention on legal aid, Doctor of Law Kamal Makili-Aliyev told Trend Feb. 8.
“Thus, the objections by Russia with regard to Lapshin’s extradition to Azerbaijan are puzzling,” he added.
“Lapshin as a citizen of Russia is perceived as such in Belarus, regardless of his Israeli citizenship,” said the expert adding that Lapshin also entered the territory of Belarus as a citizen of the Russian Federation.
“Detaining Alexander Lapshin, Belarus sent his case to his state’s judicial authorities to address the issue of his extradition,” noted Makili-Aliyev.
Under the decision of all juridical instances, the decision was made in line with the Convention on Legal Aid and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Cases of the CIS to extradite Lapshin to Azerbaijan for the administration of justice, he added.
“Azerbaijan and Belarus acted in line with their national laws and the international law,” said the expert.
Alexander Lapshin is a citizen of several countries and has had a criminal conspiracy with Armenians living in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. He also illegally visited these territories.
Lapshin is accused of violating Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012. He was included in the “black list” of Azerbaijan and declared as persona non grata.
“Despite the fact that the illegal crossing of the Azerbaijani border is a criminal offense, Azerbaijan then didn’t start the process of bringing Lapshin to justice and confined itself to diplomatic measures. Despite the fact that Lapshin was banned from visiting Azerbaijan, he entered the territory of Azerbaijan fraudulently, reviolating the laws of Azerbaijan with regard to its state border,” explained Makili-Aliyev.
Moreover, in his blog Lapshin openly called for such behavior, and also made incitements against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan by supporting the illegal separatist regime in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, noted the expert.
In order to promote the illegal regime created in the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia, Lapshin presented Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh as an “independent state” on his social media account, and supporting the “independence” of the unrecognized regime he made public incitements aimed at violating Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity on April 6 and June 29, 2016.
“Starting the procedure to bring Lapshin to justice, Azerbaijan appealed to Interpol, which received the request. The Republic of Belarus responded to this request,” Makili-Aliyev added.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.