The US authorities accuse Kemal Oksuz of organizing trip of congressmen to Azerbaijan

Baku / 08/31/18 / Turan: Former head of the Turkish-American lobbying group Kemal Oksuz was detained yesterday in Yerevan at the request of US law enforcement agencies. The former head of the Turkish-American Association of the Turkish-American Association Kemal (Kevin), Oksuz, also managed the Assembly of Friends of Azerbaijan (AFAZ).

These two organizations attracted the attention of the authorities after in 2013 reports appeared about the financing of all the expenses of the visit of a large group of American congressmen to Azerbaijan.

In 2015 the Washington Post newspaper wrote that all expenditures were secretly financed by SOCAR, the state oil company of Azerbaijan, thereby violating US laws and ethics of the Congress.

To hide the financing from SOCAR, it was stated that the structures headed by the Oksuz allocated750 thousand dollars for the organization of the visit of.

When the Ethics Committee of the House of Representatives began the investigation, Oksus refused to testify and disappeared.

According to the official Yerevan, Oksuz arrived in Armenia to do business and establish a company. On August 23, the US issued an international warrant for his arrest and Oksuz was put on the wanted list because of deception of the Ethics Committee. On August 29, he was detained in Yerevan.

Police distributed a video of the initial interrogation of Oksuz, where he admits that the trip of US officials to Azerbaijan was funded by SOCAR, and bought expensive gifts to members of the delegation. "Maybe it's corruption, I do not know," said Oksuz.

Radio Liberty writes, it is not clear why Oksuz, who are of Turkish origin, moved to Armenia, which has tense relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey. -06D-