At a meeting with Armenian Ambassador Armen Khachatryan in Minsk March 28, the Belarus leader touched upon the extradition of blogger Alexander Lapshin.

“Does Armenia have anything to do with it? Armenia has never told me anything about Lapshin,” said Lukashenko, AzVision.az reported citing BelTA agency.

“Only one country, Azerbaijan, put him on the wanted list. When he was apprehended here I thought why it happened right here. He could have gone anywhere else. Belarus would not have been involved in it. But he was caught. Interpol knew about it. We had to report and we did it as law-abiding people. What did we have to do with him? We had to extradite him to the country which had put him on the wanted list,” said the president.

The Belarus leader continued: “Moreover, I will say it in public for the first time: no one wanted to take him back. They started to play this card later. He is the citizen of three countries, and neither of them needed him. They just wanted to get rid of this problem. Therefore, there are always subtexts in all issues which will be always used to someone's advantage.”

Alexander Lapshin is a citizen of several countries and has had a criminal conspiracy with Armenians living in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. He also illegally visited these territories.

Lapshin is accused of violating Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012.

On January 17, Alexei Stuk, deputy prosecutor general of Belarus, ruled to extradite Lapshin to Azerbaijan. Lapshin was brought to Azerbaijan on February 7.

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