PACE adopted a report on corruption among deputies; the Azerbaijani authorities are among the main defendants

Strasbourg / 26.04.18 / Turan: 219-page Report of the Independent Investigative Body on Corruption Accusations in PACE was received today in plenary session after a stormy debate.

"For" voted 123 deputies, despite the furious attempts of members of the Azerbaijani delegation to prevent this.

On 29 May, 2017 the Bureau appointed the three members of the Investigation Body: Sir Nicolas Bratza (United Kingdom), former judge and former President of the European Court of Human Rights; JeanLouis Bruguière (France), former judge in charge of investigations, in particular into cases related to terrorism and international expert on anti-terrorism issues; and Elisabet Fura (Sweden), former judge at the European Court of Human Rights and former chief parliamentary Ombudsman of Sweden. The composition of the Investigation Body was approved by the Assembly at its plenary session.

The investigation team named 17 officials who received bribes and revealed large-scale exposures of systemic bribery and corruption on the sidelines of the PACE. Within nine months were investigated and published the results in the report.

The document refers to the systemic bribery of a number of deputies in the assembly when voting on certain issues in the interests of specific states. The most popular gifts were generous Azerbaijani gifts: caviar for several thousand dollars, girls for the night, and trivial money.

For the first time, the activists of the ESI organization announced the bribery of deputies by Baku in 2012.

In 2015, a former MP, Luka Volonta, who led the largest political group of the PACE, was detained in Italy for taking bribes of several million euros.

"When PACE was discussing Azerbaijan, many deputies, including those who rarely visited the assembly, always came to the vote, these people voted in favor of Azerbaijan," the report says.

The bribes were not ghostly - individual assembly officials themselves came and gave testimony to the investigation team. For example, one of the most common gifts was black caviar, the cost of which reaches several thousand dollars. Thus, PACE Secretary General Wojciech Sawicki admitted that he received caviar boxes from Azerbaijan. It is reported that even the caviar breakfasts were arranged in the assembly. Among the most common gifts were: weekly rooms in 5-star hotels, business class tickets, concert tickets and the like. In particular, the Swiss deputy Doris Fiala said that she received a gold chain with pearls and diamonds, but immediately returned it.

"Some other witnesses mentioned the offer of sex services." Dick Marty (Switzerland) told how during an official visit to Baku around one in the morning someone knocked on the door of his hotel room and looked in the peephole and saw two barely dressed young girls with champagne. "He did not open the door," the report says.

Another representative of the assembly, when she visited the capital of Azerbaijan in 2014, an exquisite carpet was brought to her hotel room, which she left because it was too cumbersome.

In turn, the Maltese deputy Debono Grek did not refuse the gift and did not even declare it.

Some representatives of the assembly told about cognac from the Armenian side, wines from Moldova and Georgia, picturesque paintings from Russia.

The report confirmed the information that "penny-bank" corruption reigns in the PACE. "There was also a system of" thanks envelopes "for the deputies of the Assembly during the election of the Council of Europe officials by PACE deputies, which came from Azerbaijan, they were handed over to deputies in hotel rooms and in the offices of national delegations," the report says.

The investigative team put forward evidence of corruption schemes against 17 current and former officials who violated ethical standards: Jaakko Laakso (Finland), who distributed Euro 500 notes, Stef Goris (Belgium), who distributed them to the EPP, Karina Voldset (Norway) and Gorana Lindblad (Sweden), the Romanian deputy Cesar Preda, the head of the EPP group, the scandalous ex-President Pedro Agramunt and others.

In addition, accusations were made against the head of the Azerbaijani delegation to the PACE, Samad Seyidov, as well as deputies of Elkhan Suleymanov, Muslim Mammadov and several other deputies, among whom German deputy Edward Lindner, against whom there is concrete evidence in the form of several tranches of money.

"The bank statements by Volonte issued by the Italian police indicate that Lindner received 799,500 euros from companies associated with Azerbaijan," the report said.

However, most often there is the surname of the scandalous Spanish official of the former PACE president, Pedro Agramunt, who is known for his pro-Russian position. He also traveled to Asad as part of the Russian delegation, headed the election observers mission to Baku and stated that they passed almost without violations.

In particular, the vice-president of the assembly Ukrainian Vladimir Ariev gave the following testimony. "Elchin Mammadov, the president of SOCAR Ukraine, came to him in 2013 and asked to support Agramunt, and not an alternative candidate from Finland." Mamedov promised to give Ariev any help if he voted for Mr. Agramunt ... It was clear that this was a bribe,"said Ariev.

The reports of the rapporteur on Azerbaijan, Alain Destexa, contradicted the ethical norms and did not contain any criticism of the authorities.

The report confirms that "corruption schemes" continue to exist on the margins of the PACE. Evidence of bribes in the document is given against 17 deputies. -02D-