Russia rights commissioner says Lapshin's extradition unacceptable

PanARMENIAN.Net - Russia's Commissioner for Human Rights Tatiana Moskalkova has denounced the extradition of Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin to Azerbaijan as unacceptable.

"I consider it unacceptable to extradite Russian citizen, independent journalist Alexander Lapshin from the territory of the Union State of Russia and Belarus to Azerbaijan", she said, according to the Ombudsman's office.

Also, she reminded that the Russian Constitution explicitly provides that a Russian citizen can't be deported from Russia or extradited to a third state.

In mid-December 2016, Lapshin wrote that he had been detained in Minsk on the request of Azerbaijan, where he was included in a black list for a visit to Nagorno Karabakh "without consent of the Azerbaijani authorities." After the visit, he had entered Azerbaijan through Georgia using a Ukrainian passport. Baku accused the blogger of violation of country's legislation and put him on an international wanted list. The Prosecutor General's office in Minsk decided to extradite Lapshin to Azerbaijan several days after his detention.