CoE launches investigation over Azerbaijan’s corruption scandal at PACE
The Council of Europe launched investigation over the corruption scandal at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) involving Azerbaijan, BBC reports. Some PACE members are accused of doing favours for Azerbaijan. In particular, there are suspicions that Azerbaijan influenced PACE’s rejection of 2013 report: during that time PACE rejected a report by German Social Democrat MP Christoph Strässer, which deplored human rights abuses in Azerbaijan and urged the authorities there to release political prisoners.
According to some reports, Azerbaijan offered bribe worth more than 2.5 million USD to one of PACE members Luca Volontè for the report to be rejected. Three top international human rights lawyers Sir Nicholas Bratza from the UK, a former president of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Jean-Louis Bruguière, a top antiterrorism judge from France and Elisabet Fura, a Swedish former judge at the ECHR, will investigate the PACE corruption allegations and will report their findings by the end of 2017.
Azerbaijan denied all charges. The European Stability Initiative (ESI) published a report in December 2016 according to which some parliamentarians in PACE had engaged in political lobbying for Azerbaijan. There were claims that some received Azerbaijani payments.
In March Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland wrote to PACE President Pedro Agramunt, urging him ‘to establish an independent external investigation body without any further delay’. Many PACE MPs supported this demand who stated that the PACE integrity was threatened by ‘serous and credible allegations of grave misconduct’.
