The state prosecutor of Baku Court of Grave Crimes has demanded a 6.5-year prison term for Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin, who is in Baku custody, the Russian service of BBC reports.
According to the source, the prosecutor stated that Lapshin has violated the Azerbaijani laws on state border and passports.
Lapshin’s attorney filed a motion to the court to be grated time for preparing his speech. The next hearing is scheduled on July 19.
The trail of the case began on June 30. During the first hearing, Alexander Lapshin said he had visited Nagorno-Karabakh as a tourist and pleaded himself not guilty.
To remind, the blogger was extradited from Belarus to Azerbaijan in February, where he was wanted after visiting the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) and criticizing the Azerbaijani leadership.
Azerbaijani prosecutors launched a criminal case into "repeated public anti-state calls" and "illegal crossing of Azerbaijan’s state border," punishable with a prison term of five to eight years.
The extradition and persecution against Lapshin was widely slammed by international community as a gross violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of speech and movement.