ECHR rejects Azerbaijan`s appeal in Lapshin`s case

ArmInfo.The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), responding to the complaint of the Azerbaijani side, upheld the decision of the ECHR of  May 20, in which the Azerbaijani authorities were found guilty of the  illegal arrest, torture and attempted murder of blogger and  journalist Alexander Lapshin in Baku prison. The court ordered Baku  to pay the Israeli Lapshin a monetary compensation in the amount of  30 thousand euros.  

"Of course, I am glad that the court in Strasbourg made such a  decision," said Alexander Lapshin in an interview with DW. At the  same time, he finds it strange that Baku went to court to review the  case: "After all, the ECHR, as a rule, in almost 99 percent of cases,  does not abandon its earlier decisions." "My "crime" was that in  2011, as a tourist, I visited the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh  Republic," Lapshin said. 

According to him, before that he had visited more than 150 countries  of the world on all continents, and it did not even occur to him that  he could be put on the international wanted list five years after  that trip.  According to the blogger, obviously, the Azerbaijani  authorities did not like the publications on social networks, which  were seen by hundreds of thousands of Lapshin's subscribers.

 He was accused not only of crossing the border without agreement  with the Azerbaijani authorities, but also of "supporting separatism"  and "calls for the overthrow of the current government in  Azerbaijan." 

In 2016, Lapshin was arrested in Minsk at the request of Azerbaijan.  Two months later, which he spent in one of the local prisons, he was  handed over to Baku on the personal instructions of Alexander  Lukashenko. A year later, a Baku court, considering the blogger's  accusations of calls for the overthrow of the government and support  for separatism unproven, found him guilty of "illegally visiting"  Karabakh.  

The prosecution required him six and a half years in prison, but the  court sentenced him to three years.  Despite the fact that Israel,  Russia, the United States and the European Union stood up for the  blogger, he spent seven months in prison. He was tortured, forbidden  to use the telephone, write and read, and the only book he was given  was the Koran, although Lapshin was Jewish by religion.  

"It was seven months later that an attack was made on me; the guards  tried to kill me, although later the authorities tried to present the  incident as a suicide attempt," Alexander Lapshin told DW. Lapshin  spent four days in a coma, after which President Ilham Aliyev  pardoned him and sent him on a charter flight to Tel Aviv. 

The examination at home confirmed the fact of the attempted murder of  the blogger.  

In 2018, Lapshin complained to the ECHR, accusing Azerbaijan of  illegal imprisonment, ill-treatment in prison and attempted murder.  It took about three years until the ECHR found the Azerbaijani  authorities guilty and ordered them to pay monetary compensation to  the blogger.