New lawyer was hired to defend blogger Alexander Lapshin, being in prison in Azerbaijan, spokesman of the Russian Embassy in Azerbaijan Denis Apashkin told.

​Axar.az reports that, he said the lawyer was hired by Lapshin’s family and added that they appealed to relevant bodies to have next meeting with him. “We will meet him again after getting relevant consent,” he said.

​Lapshin, who holds Russian, Israeli, and Ukrainian citizenship, paid illegal visits to the occupied Azerbaijani territories in April 2011 and in October 2012, violating Azerbaijan’s laws on the state border and passports. He made statements against Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. The Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s Office has opened a criminal case against him on articles 281.2 (public calls directed against the state) and 318.2 (illegal crossing border of the Azerbaijan Republic), and issued an international arrest warrant for him. Lapshin was detained in Minsk on Dec. 15, 2016 and extradited to Azerbaijan on Feb.7, 2017.