Council of Europe to investigate Azerbaijan vote-rigging allegations

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Council of Europe will set up an anti-corruption investigation amid fresh allegations that its members have been offered bribes for votes by Azerbaijan.

The 324-member body is made up of delegates from national parliaments who meet four times a year in Strasbourg.

Arif Mammadov, a former Azerbaijani diplomat turned dissident, alleged that a member of the oil-rich country’s delegation at the Council of Europe had €30m to spend on lobbying its institutions, including the Council of Europe assembly, The Guardian reported.

Tobias Billström, a Swedish delegate to the assembly and former justice minister, said earlier that “very credible members” had told him they had been offered bribes to vote in a certain way. He is one of 64 parliamentarians to have signed a resolution calling for an independent investigation into “serious and credible allegations of grave misconduct” centred on an Azerbaijani vote.

Allegations of “caviar diplomacy” have swirled around the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly for years, with Azerbaijan accused of offering cash and luxury gifts in exchange for favourable votes.