Bundestag deprived the immunity of the deputy included in the ruling coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (XDS) Axel Fisher (Axel Fischer) to provide the investigative authorities the right to searches and exemptions of evidence.
On Thursday, March 4, the plenum adopted a unanimous decision, following the recommendations of the General Prosecutor's Office of Munich and the Federal Ministry of Justice. Apparently, the decision is associated with the possible lobbying activities of Fisher in favor of the authorities of Azerbaijan, DW reports.
The request of the DPA agency in the General Prosecutor's Office in Munich was reported that the investigation was under suspicion of bribery. According to these data, searches were already held seizures of six objects in Baden-Württemberg and Berlin, in particular, in the Deputy Office in the Bundestag and residential premises. About 60 employees of the Prosecutor's Office and the Federal Office for Criminal Cases participated in the operation. Searches were preceded by large-scale investigative actions against the former and existing deputies of the Bundestag, which was part of the German delegation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
"They are imputed to the guilt, among other things, getting money from Azerbaijan in 2008-2016 through British fictitious companies to accounts in the Baltic Banks," indicated in the statement of the prosecutor's office. According to her, with obtaining these funds, the fulfillment of the requirements of Azerbaijani deputies to introduce draft resolutions and voting on them, as well as to substitute various posts in PACE.
Azerbaijani authorities have been establishing connections with German politicians for many years, trying to improve the country's image. They created a whole network of lobbyists around the former deputy of the Bundestag from HCU Eduard Lintner (Eduard Lintner). It also participated in the deputy from XDS Karin Strenz (Karin Strenz). In January 2020, there were searches in the premises used by Strets and Lintnner.
In March 2019, Karen Stretz was fined 20,000 euros for the timely notified the Bundestag on additional earnings from Azerbaijan. Suspicions of its address appeared in 2017 during the corruption scandal in PACE. In particular, its name is mentioned in the report published in April 2018, a group of independent experts on bribes for lobbying Baku interests in Europe. In connection with these accusations, at the beginning of 2018, Schretz was not re-nominated in PACE.
The episode from Stretz was only part of a large report called "Igor Diplomacy" on the lobbying activities of Azerbaijan, which provoked a corruption scandal in the Council of Europe. The document claimed that Baku was bribing the speakers of the PACE Monitoring Committee, who observed the fulfillment of the obligations that Azerbaijan assumed during joining the Council of Europe. Numerous gifts, including black caviar, carpets, dear alcohol and jewelry, were used as bribes.