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    Categories: 2018

Anthony Bourdain received threats from Azerbaijan’s authorities, Lapshin claims

Xania News
June 9 2018


9:13 AM PDT 6/9/2018

by Vladimir Kozlov

U.S. celebrity chef, writer and TV host Anthony Bourdain, who was found dead in a hotel room in France Friday of an apparent suicide, once received threats from authorities of Azerbaijan, prominent Israeli-Russian blogger Alexander Lapshin claimed in a post published on his Facebook account.

“The authorities of Azerbaijan harshly criticized him, threatened him,” Lapshin wrote.

Last October, Bourdain was declared persona non grata in Azerbaijan after filming one of the episodes of his culinary show Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown on the disputed territory of Nagorny Karabakh.

He was accused of “disrespect of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” the country’s foreign ministry said at the time.

Nagorny Karabakh is technically an Azeri territory, but it has been under control of neighboring Armeniasince the early 1990s.

Visiting Nagorny Karabakh without permission from Azeri authorities is considered a criminal offence in the country.

Police said Bourdain’s death was suicide, but Lapshin suggested that foul play might be involved. He brought up the example of Russian journalist and blogger Anton Nosik who died shortly after visiting Nagorny Karabakh.

Still, French authorities said they suspect no foul play. 

Emil Lazarian: “I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS