YEREVAN. – The blogger Alexander Lapshin’s detention was a headache for Azerbaijan because in the 21st century, it is impossible to keep a journalist behind bars for a long time, and for expressing his viewpoint.

Attorney Ara Ghazaryan expressed such a view commenting—at the request of Armenian News-NEWS.am—on the story of this blogger, and his statement that they tried to kill him in the Azerbaijani prison.

“Azerbaijan is going on the tracks of its ‘elder brother,’ Turkey, along with his notorious Article 301 [on insulting Turkish identity],” he added. “And every so often Turkey has [related] problems with the West.”

Ghazaryan recalled that several cases are known with respect to the death of Armenian captives in Azerbaijani prisons.

“But it’s impossible to constantly eliminate unwanted people,” noted the attorney.

Ara Ghazaryan said Alexander Lapshin had become a headache for the Azerbaijani authorities, and therefore they sought a way out of the situation to get rid of him somehow.

In late 2016, Israeli, Russian, and Ukrainian citizen blogger Alexander Lapshin was detained in Belarus, and based on his search by Azerbaijan. Baku had “blacklisted” him for visiting Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) without agreeing it with Azerbaijan.

Subsequently, Belarus extradited Lapshin to Azerbaijan, and a court in Baku sentenced him to three years in prison.

But on September 11, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev signed an order of granting pardon to this blogger.

On the same day, however, it became known that Lapshin had attempted to commit suicide in prison.

Alexander Lapshin left Azerbaijan on September 14, and went to Israel.