ArmInfo. The supporters of blog writer Alexander Lapshin, who is currently in custody in Baku, ask Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to influence Ilham Aliyev.
In their open letter posted on Lapshin's Facebook page on Feb 13, the blog writer's supporters urge the Israeli Prime Minister to send a request to Azeri President Ilham Aliyev and to help Lapshin.
"Your international influence is big and you can and must help the Israeli citizen, who served in Tzahal and who is in a difficult situation now. Israel released Gilad Shalit by paying a high price for him and even criminal Elhanan Tannenbaum, who was kidnapped and taken to Lebanon. And your brother perished in the Entebbe operation," the letter says.
The authors of the letter are convinced that it is time to help the man, who was performing his duty of a journalist, found himself involved in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and eventually found himself in the Azeri prison. They are also convinced that given the relations between Israel and Azerbaijan and the joint military and economic programs, Netanyahu has an opportunity to help the Israeli citizen to be set free.
The authors of the letter stress the danger of such a precedent, noting that if this situation is neglected, many Israelis can find themselves in a similar situation for visiting disputed territories and even for visiting the territories in Jerusalem or the Golan Heights, which the international community does not acknowledge Israeli.
On Feb 7 the Supreme Court of Belarus rejected Lapshin's complaint about the legitimacy and substantiation of the decision of the Minsk City Court, which declared the decision of the Belarusian Prosecutor General's Office about extradition to Baku as legitimate. On Feb 7 evening Lapshin was sent to Baku. To recall, Alexander Lapshin was detained in mid-December in Minsk upon Azerbaijan's request. Baku "blacklisted" Lapshin for visiting the Nagorno- Karabakh Republic without coordinating his decision with the Azeri authorities. On January 17, the Prosecutor General's Office of Belarus satisfied Azerbaijan's request about Lapshin's extradition.
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