In Alexander Lapshin's case, witnesses condemn his trips to Nagorno-Karabakh

On July 3, in Baku, at a hearing held in the case against blogger Alexander Lapshin, the court questioned witnesses Eiyub Abdulazimov and Fakhraddin Safarov, internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the Shusha District. This was told to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by a source who watched the trial. The witnesses told about the insult, inflicted on them by the blogger Alexander Lapshin's publications about Nagorno-Karabakh.

"The witnesses told that as a result of the seizure of Shusha, they lost their houses and other property, and Alexander Lapshin insulted their feelings when he visited Nagorno-Karabakh and tried to present it as an 'independent Armenian state.' The witnesses said that Shusha was the land of their ancestors, while Alexander Lapshin described it as 'Armenian land'," said the source.

Azerbaijani advocate Yalchin Imanov believes that the charges filed against Alexander Lapshin "have legal grounds."

"The signs of the commission of a criminal act under Article 318.2 of the Criminal Code (illegal crossing of the state border of Azerbaijan) are obvious, since the blogger himself does not hide that he visited Nagorno-Karabakh, which is located within the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan," Yalchin Imanov told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The advocate believes that the IDPs from Nagorno-Karabakh and specifically from the Shusha District can be recognized not only as witnesses in the case, but also as victims in connection with infliction of moral damage.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.