![Xristian-Demokratik Birliyinin üzvü Karin Ştrenz](https://turan.az/resized/media/2020/main/013000024255-750-500-resize.webp)
Xristian-Demokratik Birliyinin üzvü Karin Ştrenz
German parliamentarians suspected of receiving money from Azerbaijan
Baku / 30.01.20 / Turan: On January 30 the Bundestag stripped parliamentary immunity of Karin Strenz, a deputy from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Last year, the parliament fined Strentz 20 thousand euros. She is accused of taking a bribe of at least 22 thousand euros to lobby for the interests of Azerbaijan in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), DW reports.
On Thursday, in connection with an investigation into Strenz, about 100 prosecutors, the Federal Criminal Office and the Belgian police raided 16 sites: the deputy’s office in the Bundestag, her personal apartment in Berlin, as well as in residential premises, offices and law firms in Berlin, the federal states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Bavaria, as well as in Belgium.
Together with her in the case is the ex-deputy of the Bundestag from the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), the former parliamentary state secretary to the Minister of the Interior, Eduard Lintner.
According to the prosecutor's office, from 2008 to 2016 Lintner received about 4 million euros from Azerbaijan through British shell companies that had accounts in banks in the Baltic countries. He redirected a significant part of this money, minus his remuneration, to individual PACE members who were supposed to speak positively about the elections in Azerbaijan and oppose the demands for the release of political prisoners in this country.
In this case, there is also a third suspect, on the bribery and lobbying of the interests of Azerbaijan, whose name the investigation has not yet disclosed. He is accused of creating a shell company and opening bank accounts through his law office to transfer money from Azerbaijan to bribe PACE members, DW reports.—0-
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- Great East
- 30 January 2020 18:37
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- Politics
- 30 January 2020 20:23
Politics
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Armenia is not against the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group, but does not consider it appropriate to discuss this issue now. "In the context of peace, we consider it possible to make a decision on the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group. When peace is an established fact, the existence of such a format may raise questions," Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a press conference today. "The whole question is about the timing, we need to understand how effectively and correctly to turn such topics into a subject of discussion right now," the Armenian Prime Minister added.
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On August 30, at approximately 22:55, the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant in Metsamor was disconnected from the country's power grid, as reported by the Armenian Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure. The shutdown was caused by a lightning strike, which triggered the plant's safety systems to switch the station to a safe shutdown mode. Currently, the plant's staff is working on restarting the facility.
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