After the CDU MP Axel Fischer, the Thuringian Mark Hauptmann is now being criticized.
He is said to have received high advertising payments for a local newspaper.
Berlin - Apparently the Thuringian CDU member of the Bundestag Mark Hauptmann has also benefited from connections with Azerbaijan.
As
Spiegel Online
reports, he placed an advertisement for a trip to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, in the “Südthüringen Kurier”, of which he is the publisher.
Azerbaijani authorities are said to have paid 16,744 euros for this, Hauptmann has confirmed.
It is questionable whether this money is worth an advertisement in the small local paper.
The CDU * member is considered a supporter of the regime and head of state Ilcham Aliyev, but he denies a connection between this attitude and the expensive advertisement.
Baku-Connection: Government of Azerbaijan bought positive comments
MP Axel Fischer recently got into the media for similar reasons.
The Bundestag withdrew his parliamentary immunity from Fischer on Thursday.
According to media reports, it is about allegations in connection with a bribery affair in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe: In the affair of the so-called Baku Connection, the Azerbaijani government is said to have bought positive comments from politicians in other Council of Europe countries.
Fischer is also suspected of having made positive comments about the authoritarian ruled former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan in return for cash payments.
From 2014 to 2017 he was head of the German delegation to the parliamentary assembly.
Baku Connection investigations largely suspended
As a result of the “Baku Connection”, the Council of Europe imposed a house ban on 14 former assembly members in 2018, including the CDU member of the Bundestag * Karin Strenz and the former CSU member Eduard Lintner.
The police are still investigating the two Union politicians.
Lintner in particular is said to have played a major role in Baku's “caviar diplomacy”.
According to the organization Transparency International, however, the investigations into the Baku Connection were in most cases closed with the end of the mandate of the Council of Europe's Special Commission at the end of 2018.
"The national prosecutors have been slow or not daring to investigate the suspicion of bribery and money laundering," said legal advisor Foldes.
In some countries, the allegations were not investigated at all.
*
Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA
