Guardian: Azerbaijani delegation to PACE spent about 30 million euros on lobbying services and bribery of parliamentarians

Guardian hears claims that oil-rich country tried to bribe members of human rights body to secure votes against reports criticising its president.One of Europe’s oldest human rights bodies is being urged to set up a far-reaching anti-corruption investigation next week, amid fresh allegations of vote rigging that have put its credibility on the line.

Отмечается, что двое членов ПАСЕ рассказали «The Guardian» о своих подозрениях по поводу получения крупных взяток некоторыми своими коллегами. Они должны были голосовать за Азербайджан.

Two people with high-level experience of the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly (Pace) have told the Guardian they believe its members have been offered bribes for votes by Azerbaijan.They had to vote for Azerbaijan.

Arif Mammadov, a former Azerbaijani diplomat turned dissident, alleged that a member of the oil-rich country’s delegation at the Council of Europe had €30m (£25m) to spend on lobbying its institutions, including theCouncil of Europe assembly.

«Все члены азербайджанской делегации знали об этой цифре, хотя она никогда нигде не фигурировала. Говорили, что деньги предназначены для подкупа членов других делегаций и ПАСЕ в целом», – сказал Мамедов.
“Everyone” in the Azerbaijani delegation had heard of this number, although “it was never written down”, he told the Guardian. “It was said this money was to bribe members of the delegations and Pace generally.” Tobias Billström, a Swedish delegate to the assembly and former justice minister, said “very credible members” had told him they had been offered bribes to vote in a certain way. He is one of 64 parliamentarians to have signed a resolution calling for an independent investigation into “serious and credible allegations of grave misconduct” centred on an Azerbaijani vote.

Allegations of “caviar diplomacy” have swirled around the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly for years, with Azerbaijan accused of offering cash and luxury gifts in exchange for favourable votes.

The claims were first laid out in a 2012 report by the European Stability Initiative thinktank, but have gathered momentum since Italian prosecutors began investigating a former chair of the centre-right group, Italian deputy Luca Volontè.

Although one fifth of MPs at the Council of Europe called for an urgent inquiry in January, assembly leaders failed to take a decision at their last meeting in March. Pressure is building on the assembly president, Pedro Agramunt, to ensure that a robust investigation is set up when it meets later this month.

Critics say Azerbaijan uses the assembly to add a veneer of legitimacy to the authoritarian rule of its president, Ilham Aliyev, who has ruled the country since 2003.

One case concerns the decision of assembly members in 2013 to vote down a critical report on political prisoners in Azerbaijan by German social democrat Christoph Strässer. The Strasser report concluded that Azerbaijan’s judicial system was used to silence or intimidate critics of the Aliyev regime and was rejected by 125 votes to 79 with 20 abstentions.

Volontè is alleged to have played a key role in orchestrating the defeat with payments to him channelled through a company with a connection to Azerbaijan’s ruling family, according to a recent report by the investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

Strӓsser said he knew Azerbaijan was giving out money but had no proof votes were bought. He said he wanted to see an investigation “as a point of credibility”.

Billström said it would be inconceivable for the Council of Europe to turn down a request for an independent investigation when it faces “so many serious allegations… which concern the ability of the parliamentary assembly to function as it was intended, as a watchdog against corruption.”

The Guardian recently wrote that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) risks being discredited if it does not immediately begin an investigation into the fraudulent election results in favor of the authoritarian regime of Azerbaijan. In particular, the Dutch parliamentarian Peter Omtzicht called on the PACE to begin a detailed investigation of this case, and a fifth of the PACE parliamentarians have already signed the resolution of Omtsikht.

Напомним также, что ранее «Европейская инициатива стабильности» опубликовала вторую часть исследования об Азербайджане под названием «Икорная дипломатия: Европейское болото», в котором описываются вопиющие факты коррупционных схем, организованных властями Азербайджана с вовлечением высокопоставленных европейских политиков.

It should also be recalled that the “European Stability Initiative” earlier published the second part of the study on Azerbaijan called “Caviar Diplomacy: European Swamp”, which describes blatant facts of corruption schemes organized by Azerbaijani authorities involving high-ranking European politicians.

The report describes the relationship of the Azerbaijani authorities with the Italian parliamentarian Luca Volonte, who has received about 3 million euros from Azerbaijan for “his dirty lobbying services.” The traces also lead to to the chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Pedro Agramuntu, who visited Azerbaijan in 2003, 2005, 2010 and 2013 as an election observer and constantly defended Baku, when it was a question of human rights violations in that country.

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Источник: theguardian.com