Belarusian Prosecutor General's Office admits no Interpol warrant for Lapshin despite Lukashenko claims
Belarusian Prosecutor General's Office has admitted that Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Laphsin, who was extradited to Azerbaijan on February 8, had never been placed on an international wanted list through Interpol, Ria Novosty reported.
Earlier, Interpol refuted claims that the organization had ever issued a warrant to arrest Lapshin, according to the published correspondence between the organization and the Armenian Police.
“Alexader Lapshin has been in interstate search and was detained in accordance with the CIS agreement regarding the search for wanted persons,” the representative of the Belarusian Prosecutor General's Office has told the agency.
The comment came a week after Belarusian President Alexader Lukashenko publicly claimed Lapshin was “detained in accordance with the Interpol decision,” and that “Azerbaijan appealed with this issue not to Belarus, but to Interpol.”
To remind, Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin was extradited to Azerbaijan on Tuesday, hours after the Supreme Court of Belarus upheld a lower court ruling to extradite him. Lapshin was detained in Minsk in December at Azerbaijan’s request 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 Russian Foreign Ministry said on February 8 that Lapshin’s extradition "does not correspond to the spirit of friendly ties between allies Russia and Belarus."
Armenia’s Foreign Ministry slammed the persecution of Alexander Lapshin and his extradition to Azerbaijan as “a gross violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of speech and movement.”