YEREVAN. – Azerbaijan is using legally established instrument of extradition as a part of political campaign, Czech Ambassador to Armenia Petr Mikyska told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

His remark came in response to a question whether extradition of bloger Alexander Lapshin to Azerbaijan and international warrant against European Parliament members, among them Czech MP Jaromir Stetina, issued by Baku might become a dangerous precedent.

“EU and the countries of the Council of Europe are supporting the case of fight against corruption and international crime, and the institute of extradition is very important in this fight. Thus, it should be allowed to the authorities of country A to issue warrant against a citizen of a country B if he committed a crime on the territory of country A. However, in this case we have to distinguish between criminality and political motives,” Ambassador said.

According to him, in the above-mentioned cases Azerbaijan is moved by political motives, not exactly by the legal ones.

“Some lawyers say that the so-called illegal crossing of Azerbaijani border is not a crime for other countries, so Baku’s warrant should not be recognized as legally based warrant. Others say that Azerbaijan is not using the exercise of the dominance of the border that Mr. Lapshin and Stetina have crossed. It is a very delicate and complicated situation,” the diplomat said.

The diplomat believes that Azerbaijan is using legally established instrument but in political way, and it depends on other states how they will accept this warrant or not. Some countries react with extradition as it was with Mr. Lapshin.

“As far as I know other countries are not reacting to Azerbaijan’s warrant because in this case Czech authorities should extradite Mr. Stetina, which is not the case. We will have to see this issue on some legal and law institutions because it is not so easy. My opinion is that extra-territorial warrant must be used very carefully and not in accordance with political motives,” Ambassador added.