Milan Prosecutor`s General Office accusation of parliamentarian Luca Volonte on receiving bribe from Azerbaijan being discussed in PACE
ArmInfo.Political group of European People's Party of PACE is discussing accusation by Milan's Prosecutor's General Office of Italian parliamentarian Luca Volonte on receiving bribe from Azerbaijan, member of the Armenian delegation to PACE Samvel Farmanyan wrote on his Facebook page.
According to him the Armenian delegation continues to state that PACE should appoint a special rapporteur investigator on this scandalous issue, as it has put to question the image of the EPP all around Europe.
To note, earlier "European Stability Initiative" issued the second part of the report on Azerbaijan named "Caviar diplomacy: the European Swamp," in which it describes blatant facts of corrupt schemes organized by the Azerbaijani authorities with the involvement of high-ranking European politicians. In the report, the Azerbaijani authorities' relationship with the Italian parliamentarian Luca Volonte is described, who has received nearly 3 mln EUR from Azerbaijan for his "dirty lobbying services". The report also mentioned President of PACE Pablo Agramunt who visited Azerbaijan as PACE election observer in 2003, 2005, 2010 and 2013 and consistently defended Baku's human rights record. Considering this, Transparency International and its representation offices in 6 European countries called for the Council of Europe to investigate the statements about the reports on being corrupted.
Besides, Azerbaijani law defenders, activists and previous political detainees journalist Khadija Ismayilova and lawyer Ingitam Aliyev have submitted a letter to PACE members urging to immediately take correspondent measures. "We urge PACE to demonstrate strong position on human rights violation in Azerbaijan", the activists wrote.