Opposition Responded to Prosecutor General

Baku / 08.06.17 / Turan: Opposition leaders rejected charges of Prosecutor General Zakir Garalov about financing their parties from abroad.

Two days ago, Garalov accused the parties of not providing financial reporting to the CEC, and NGOs - of receiving grants.

According to Garalov, the authorities changed the laws and "opposition parties and NGOs lost the opportunity to be financed from abroad."

But now, according to Garalov, "NGOs and parties want to open personal accounts abroad and illegally import financial means into the country." "Such attempts are suppressed and will continue to be suppressed," he said and promised that illegal sources of financing will be revealed. "It's time for a serious check on these illegal financial sources," Garalov passed his verdict.

Answering these accusations, the leader of the Popular Front Party Ali Kerimli said the Prosecutor General should investigate how tens of billions from Azerbaijan was withdrawn to the offshore and respond to inquiries about the activities of the ruling family companies identified in the Panama dossier.

"The statements of the Prosecutor General are similar to statements made by the functionary of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party. We have repeatedly stated that the real opposition of Azerbaijan, and in particular the Popular Front Party, has never received grants. And the Prosecutor General should know about it best. If he has facts, then let him tell from whom and how many PFPA received grants," Kerimli said.

He called absurd accusations against his deputy Gezal Bayramli.

"Those who plundered the billions through the International Bank now find out the origin of 1,000 euros at Gezal Bayramli," Kerimli said.

He linked the authorities' attacks on the opposition with the presidential elections of 2018.

"The authorities are afraid of the 2018 elections. All the press has been silenced, there is no freedom of assembly, the opposition is under pressure, and prisons are full of political prisoners.

But despite all this, the candidate of the ruling team will be defeated. Therefore, their goal is to make the next elections uncontested," Kerimli said.

He said the party has no income and activities of all functionaries, including his bodyguards, are carried out free of charge.

"I'm ready to be arrested," he stressed.

The Executive Secretary of the REAL movement on his Facebook page said that transparency must concern everyone.

"Transparency cannot be one-sided. Even in the time of the late Heydar Aliyev, a decision was made to oblige declarations about the incomes of officials, but this is still not there," Jafarli said.

He also commented on Garalov's rhetorical question about "where the opposition gets money to buy cars."

"I want to admit that I changed the Korean car bought in 2009 to a Japanese car in 2014. The head of the CEC Mazahir Panahov played an important role in this.

In the 2010 parliamentary elections, he did not register my car.

The CEC "lost" one of the 12 subscriptions, sheets of the commission certified by the seal of the district voters. In the middle of last year, the European Court of Human Rights found the CEC guilty and ordered to pay me 10,000 euros (19,000 manat). That's thanks to the "focus" of Mazahir Panahov, I received money from the state and updated the car," said Jafarli.

In his opinion, now it's up to the officials, let them tell where they got their villas and expensive cars, and what money they bought all this for.

"For example, the same head of the CEC has dozens of real estate. To buy them honestly they had to work 500 years," Jafarli said ironically.

The head of the National Council of Democratic Forces, Jamil Hasanli, believes that if we talk about investigations, first of all we need to check the facts of misappropriation and embezzlement of budget funds and corruption.

"Numerous arrests have been made in the International Bank lending case. But the biggest borrower of the bank was Accord, which received a loan of AZN 1 billion. Borrowers for 50 thousand,100 thousand, and 1 million manat were kept in the organized criminality department for a long time, and what did the Prosecutor General's Office do to return the 1 billion received by Accord ?" said Hasanli.

In addition, the international journalistic network has revealed the withdrawal of large funds from Azerbaijan to offshore.

"We together with Ali Kerimli sent a request to the Prosecutor General's Office about this. But why does the Prosecutor General, who is seeking financial irregularities in the activities of NGOs, not express the attitude to such major corruption acts?" asked Hasanli.

The Prosecutor General's Office did not respond to the appeal of the opposition to conduct an investigation in connection with the discovery of the fact of giving the Italian MP Luca Volonte 2.9 million dollars for lobbying in favor of the Azerbaijani government in PACE.

The investigation revealed that the company that paid Volonte the bribe withdrew 1 billion euros from Azerbaijan to the offshore. In addition, due to the "loss of solvency", this company was exempted from paying taxes to the state for AZN 31 million.

In the course of the investigation of the case on the leadership of the Ministry of Communications, it was revealed that the ex-minister received 300,000 manat a month in cash from the total number of embezzled state funds, and his current deputies got 30,000 manat. -03B06-