Israeli blogger pardoned by Azerbaijan pres. for tresspassing
40-year-old Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin pardoned by Azerbaijan Pres. Aliyev after being extradited on espionage, tresspassing charges, in addition to insulting the president; though Israel had tried to prevent his transfer to Azerbaijan, fearing a heavy prison sentence, Lapshin was given only 3 years, prior being pardoned.
Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev pardoned Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin on Monday, after Lapshin was convicted of illegally crossing the border into Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region. He is now expected to be expedited to Israel, this according to the president's official website.
Prior to being pardoned by Aliyev, Lapshin, a 40-year-old Haifa resident with Israeli, Russian and Ukrainian citizenships, had been arrested on several charges—namely, tresspassing the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan; calling the Azerbaijani government "a dictatorship"; and openly supporting the region's independence. Soon after, Azerbaijan issued a warrant for his arrest on suspicion of espionage, with news sources speculating that he was working for the Armenian Special Police.
Lapshin was arrested earlier this year upon reaching Belarus, before being extradited to Azerbaijan. Israeli officials tried in vain to prevent this, worried that if Lapshin were to had been transferred to Azerbaijan, he would had faced a heavy prison sentence.
However, during his sentencing, the Azerbaijani judge only found Lapshin guilty of the tresspassing charges leveled against him, and did not accept the espionage charges or hand down additional jail time for his criticizing the president. He was therefore sentenced to three years in prison, to be counted from the moment he was arrested in Belarus, on Dec. 15th, 2016. The judge further explained the surprisingly lenient sentence as taking into acocunt that fact that Lapshin had no prior charges, and the fact that he is a father to a young girl.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko mentioned the affair in May, saying that "we must transfer him to Azerbaijan. There is no reason not to." Lukashenko stressed that the matter will be solved in accordance to the law and international agreements, and suggested that Israel and Azerbaijan decide Lapshin's fate together.
Following the warrant for his arrest, Lapshin sent a letter of apology to President Aliyev through the Israeli Consul to Belarus Yulia Rahinski Spivakov, who attested to his broken mental state.
