YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 14, ARMENPRESS. Oleg Kravchenko, deputy minister of foreign affairs of Belarus, delivered a lecture entitled “Belarus and its neighbors” on February 13 in Carleton University, Ottawa.

Representatives of the Union of Armenian Students of Ottawa, and the Armenian National Committee of Ottawa were present at the lecture.

A Q&A was held after the lecture, where the Armenian students asked a barrage of questions  to the Belarus deputy FM, which were exclusively in regard to the extradition of Alexander Lapshin to Azerbaijan, and overall human rights violations in Belarus. Oleg Kravchenko became perplexed and gave contradicting answers.

During the lecture, Kravchenko drew similarities between Canada and Belarus, however, to a question that Canada is a democratic state, but on the other hand in Belarus the President is ruling the country for more than 20 years in an autocratic manner, Kravchenko responded by saying there are no flawless countries.

Responding to a questing on the extradition of Alexander Lapshin, Kravchenko said : “Sometimes CIS conventions on extradition can contradict the UN conventions”. This idea completely unmasks the true behavior of Belarus, which is rather far from the UN conventions and other international legal acts.

Alexander Lapshin, a Russian-Israeli-Ukrainian blogger, was extradited to Azerbaijan from Belarus on February 7 on a special flight, Interfax correspondent reported from Baku airport.

The Belarus Supreme Court denied Lapshin’s appeal on the extradition verdict issued by the General Prosecutor of Belarus.

Lapshin faces up to 5 years imprisonment in Azerbaijan, under charges of “public calls against the state”, and “unauthorized crossing of borders”.

Belarus police arrested Alexander Lapshin on December 15, 2016 in Minsk. Lapshin, a Russian and Israeli citizen, resides in Moscow and writes for the famous Russian Travel Blog. He is wanted by Azerbaijan for visiting Nagorno Karabakh in 2011, 2012 and 2016, and criticizing Azerbaijan’s policy in his blog.

Baku demanded the extradition of Lapshin from Belarus.

Earlier it was reported that the Deputy Prosecutor General of Belarus has made a decision to uphold the request of Azerbaijan’s General Prosecutor on extraditing Citizen of Russia and Israel Alexander Lapshin, who is wanted for violating Articles 281.2 and 318.2 of Azerbaijan’s Criminal Code.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said on February 3 : “Belarus has no grounds to not extradite Lapshin to Azerbaijan”. He said the issue will be solved based on law and international agreements.

The Russian foreign ministry said it is inadmissible to extradite Russian citizens to third countries.

Lapshin’s wife has requested Israeli PM Netanyahu to interfere in the matter.