By AFP

Two former German lawmakers went on trial in Munich on Thursday accused of illegally accepting money to lobby for Azerbaijan in a scandal known as “Caviargate”.

Eduard Lintner, 80, a longtime MP for the conservative Bavarian CSU party, is suspected of receiving several million euros from Azerbaijan between 2008 and 2016 via a network of foreign shell companies.

Lintner is accused of using some of the money to recruit other politicians to lobby for Azerbaijan, including fellow defendant Axel Fischer, a former parliamentarian for the CSU’s bigger sister party, the CDU.

According to prosecutors, Fischer received a total of around 84,000 euros from Lintner to vote in favour of Azerbaijan in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

Lintner, a former state secretary in the German interior ministry, is also accused of paying 150,000 euros in bribes to another CDU lawmaker, Karin Strenz, who died in 2021.

Two other defendants are also on trial for aiding and abetting the bribery by establishing contacts and processing payments related to the scheme.

Lintner said Thursday that he would not be making any statements during the trial, while Fischer called the allegations against him “baseless”.

According to prosecutors, investigations in the case have been “very complex and time-consuming”, spanning countries including Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Turkey.

Azerbaijan is a small but resource-rich country in the South Caucasus that faces regular criticism over its human rights record.

The accusations against Lintner and Fischer came to light as the result of an independent investigation into corruption commissioned by the Council of Europe in 2018.

In the scandal, several members of PACE were accused of accepting bribes in the form of caviar, carpets and stays in luxury hotels in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital.

PACE, the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe, is dedicated to upholding human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

Lintner served in the German parliament for 33 years until 2009 and was a member of PACE from 2003 to 2010.

In 2017, a group of European newspapers published a report accusing Azerbaijan’s ruling elite of running a secret 2.5 billion euro ($2.9 billion) slush fund to pay off European politicians and launder money.

The scheme was nicknamed the “Azerbaijan Laundromat” because the money that passed through it was allegedly laundered through a series of shell companies to disguise its origin.

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