Exposure of Volante’s case is a matter of CoE’s reputation - Corriere della Sera refers to caviar scandal

YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. Prominent Italian Corriere della Sera newspaper has again referred to the corruption scandal at the Council of Europe with the participation of Italian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians. “Armenpress” reports the newspaper mentions that any country member to that European institution are obliged to respect human rights, freedom of speech and principles of democracy, while in case of infringing the member states should be condemned, punished and in case of extreme cases their membership should be discontinued. “The 10 years of Azerbaijan’s membership engendered the concept of “caviar diplomacy”. Almost none of the parliamentarians denies receiving at least some small amount of Caspian caviar from their Azerbaijani colleges during those years”, the newspaper writes.

The newspaper than refers to one of the cases that has caused most stir, the case of Italian parliamentarian Luca Volante, who being the leader of the political group of the largest party in the PACE, the European Peoples Party, has received a donation amounting 10 million Euro from Azerbaijani lobbyist Suleymanov with 10 thousand Euro for each month. The payments started in 2013 and were implemented through 4 different offshore organizations registered in Belize, Seychelles and the British Virgin Islands. Volante describes those sums as donations. Based on the suspicions over this case Milan’s Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation in 2014 when the transactions had already amounted to nearly 2 million Euros. After two years of investigation the Court of Milan froze the money, expressing suspicions that these sums might be paid by the Azerbaijani government as a bribe to get political support at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. As evidence, the Italian newspaper states that Volante guided the political group led by him to vote against the report by German parliamentarian Strasser on political prisoners in Azerbaijan, as well as presents the conversation of Volante and Azerbaijani parliamentarian Muslim Mammadov, where Volante says that what Mammadov wants “is a law for him”. Last Friday the Court of Milan launched a proceeding over this case under money laundering, but not corruption, since the parliamentarian has immunity. But the Prosecutor will apply to the Supreme Court for that.

“The exposure of this issue is of more importance for the Council of Europe, since this organization represents the values for which we have shed blood and tears. But, at the same time, political persecutions against opposition representatives go on in Azerbaijan, with over 100 in prisons. The European Parliament did not even deploy election observers in Azerbaijan in 2015 since Azerbaijan did not meet the necessary conditions, while the leadership of that country has even closed the OSCE Office in Baku”, the newspaper writes.