Large corruption scandal uncovered at Council of Europe money and luxury gifts for politicians

Analyst in Deustche Welle, Max Hoffman, has said that if European MPs prefer to receive money and gifts in secret, instead of fighting corruption, then the Council of Europe is no longer needed.

The fact that Russia and Turkey have nothing to ask for in an institution, which should be committed to a rule of law and democracy, should in fact not exist. But, in Strasbourg, connoisseurs of the situation say their expulsion would bring nothing good, as it would be impossible to influence Erdogan or Putin. So was Azerbaijan. That the country would initially be integrated into the EU, then European values would be broadcast. But that didn't happen”, he was quoted as saying, writes B92, past Periscope.

According to him, it is easier to carry Azerbaijan successfully to the West than the other way around.

Not always can the word be worth more than money and luxury gifts. It seems that some members of the Parliamentary Assembly gladly received those gifts”, Hoffmann says.

What is known so far about the corruption that the Council of Europe engulfed? 

In 2013, CSU's former Bundestag delegation Edward Lintner led an election observer mission in Azerbaijan. His assessment, after President Ilham Aliyev was confirmed with 85 per cent of the vote in office: the elections were “in line with German standards”. In contrast, she saw this Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe: She pronounced some criticism of the election.

Two days after his positive statement, Lintner received 61.000 euros for <x0 use” more specifically undefined ) only one of the 19 payments that resulted between 2012 and 2014 and which total 819,500 euros. With this, CSU politician is part of a series of high-ranking personalities who have benefited from a money laundering and corruption fund.

Suspected funds, suspicious payments

Since early autumn 2017, the O research network CCRP as well as a number of European newspapers had reported on the fund. Its branches are diverse: Thus, through four British-based guacque companies in the accounts of an Estonian branch of a Danish bank have totaled 2.5m euros.

With this money, luxury goods have reportedly been bought and European politicians and relatives of the Azerbaijanian elite have been paid. According to research network data O CCRP, the origin of the money is unclear, however, there are <x0 clear data about the family of President Aliyev”.

At the time of the alleged money laundering action, Azerbaijan's oil-rich government acted against the opposition, arrested human rights activists and journalists.

Even the FDP politician Thein took bribes?

According to O CCRP, Lintner announced that the money was taken from a non-state organisation in Azerbaijan, which is run by Elkhan Suleynovo, an Azerbaijani deputy and member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

After Lintner emerged in 2009 from Bundestag, he founded the lobbyist organisation “Society for support of German-Azerbaijanian relations shpk”, GeFdaB. It also financed the election observer mission, which remained in Azerbaijan in 2013 at the invitation of the Azerbaijan electoral commission. Lintner was not the only member of the German observer mission, which praised the elections, which gave Aliyev a third five-year period in office. Former FDP escort Alexander Thein called the elections “another step towards democratic standards”.

Lintner Justified

In an email sent to Deutsche Welle, Lintner justified the observer mission with the argument that they had assessed only election day in 2013 and not a long period, as the OSCE monitors do, who analyse the election campaign. Lintner writes that GeFdaB was funded by an NGO supported by the Azerbaijanian government, which had established an office in Berlin, had gathered a small staff of collaborators and paid his salary. Illegal financing of any kind, Lintner rejected them.

GeFdaB had primarily tried to resolve the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia around Berg-Karabakh. This lobbiist organization had discontinued its activities in 2015 after its supporters in Azerbaijan had stopped helping.

“car diplomacy”

Berlin Research Centre, “The European Stability Initiative” (ESI) says Lintner's efforts to cover up Azerbaijan's autocratic regime are old. Thus, from 1999 to 2010, this politician has been part of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where he and other parliamentary colleagues had praised Azerbaijan's presidential and parliamentary elections and repeatedly defended the regime from criticism. In return, the lobbyists received luxury goods, such as “diplomacy of the caviar”, the ESI calls Azerbaijani's efforts to exert influence over the Council of Europe. The aim of the regime is to get the stamp of legitimacy through membership in the Council of Europe and to preserve it, at the same time as maintaining authoritarian structures of the autocratic regime.