The blogger is already in Israel.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has pardoned blogger Alexander Lapshin, who had been sentenced to three years in prison for a visit to Nagorno-Karabakh without official permission of Baku. On September 14, he left Baku and is now in Israel.
The Azerbaijani authorities claim that Lapshin attempted suicide.
“I fully deny the official Azeri lies about my alleged suicide attempt in Baku prison on 10 September. According to Azerbaijani media, President Aliyev expressed humanism, pitied the suicidal blogger and decided to pardon him the day after the mythical suicide attempts,” Alexander Lapshin wrote in LJ.
The blogger said that he wrote these lines in Israel.
“On the night of 11 September 2017, when I went to sleep in a cell number 10 of the Baku prison, the door suddenly door opened. I was lying with my back against the door and could not even stand up, when some person grabbed me by the neck and hands, and then made several punches to the side. I do not remember anything. The following memories is from the intensive care center of Baku clinic, where I lay connected to the catheter and with an oxygen mask on my face. I also had two teeth broken and my entire back and side were in bruises.”
According to the blogger, in a Tel Aviv clinic, doctors confirmed that the injuries looked like physical violence, rather than attempted suicide.
Azerbaijani authorities accused Lapshin of violating the state border law. He got into the “black list” for visiting Nagorno-Karabakh Republic without approval from the authorities.
In December 2016 the blogger was detained in Minsk, and in February 2017 he was handed to Azerbaijan.
Mr Lapshin is a citizen of Russia, Israel, and Ukraine.
