Russia briefly detained Azerbaijani blogger wanted by Armenia
- 22 February, 04:45
An Azerbaijani blogger and social media influencer Kamil Zeynalli was detained in Moscow on February 21 due to “interstate arrest warrant” issued by Armenia.
Zeynalli was detained at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport. The blogger was held in the airport for a few hours. Videos circulated in social media showed Zeynalli being escorted by Russian law-enforcers.
Before his release, Zeynalli shared a video on his Instagram account with 1.8 million followers, in which he appealed to the Azerbaijani government for help. The blogger said that Armenia placed him on an international wanted list last May and it was the first time he was detained despite his previous three trips to Russia. “They tell me that either we will hand you over to Armenia or they will come and take you away from us,” Zeynalli said.
The Azerbaijani ambassador to Russia later clarified that Zeynalli was on a wanted list for the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a Russia-led regional intergovernmental organisation.
Zeynalli was released on the same day and flew to Azerbaijan on Wednesday evening.
It should be noted that Armenia had issued an interstate arrest warrant for alleged war crimes committed during the Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020. Armenia claims Zeynali murdered an elderly Armenian man in a video that went viral. However, Zeynalli has not confirmed that it was him in the video. Zeynalli made a lot of social media content during the war that upset both Armenian and the Azerbaijani governments. In one of videos he was addressing a number of Azerbaijani soldiers in a military unit despite the fact that he was banned from entering the war zone as he was sharing sensitive content and violating “military regime”. In yet another video circulated after Azerbaijan’s victory in the war, Zeynali entered an Armenian commander’s house in Azerbaijan’s recaptured lands. The blogger had entered the territory illegally.
