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“Dear Colleagues,

In the April Session the Assembly discussed the report of PACE independent investigative body on the corruption schemes and scandals in the Assembly. The report comprised of 210 pages was almost completely dedicated to PACE lobbying and the criminal deals of Azerbaijan of bribing the Assembly Members. In the report Azerbaijan is mentioned 942 times and the conclusion of the report is one: through many years a distinct corruption scheme functioned in PACE, where the main role has been reserved to the Azerbaijani Laundromat, the so called ‘caviar diplomacy.’ And as the former representative of Azerbaijan to CoE Arif Mamedov, has noted in his evidence, Azerbaijan has given 30mln Euros bribe to PACE. In our organisation, among the persons having illegal activities in favour of Azerbaijan, according to the report, there are former, as well as current MPs, whose honourable list was leading PACE former President Pedro Agramunt. The independent Committee presented a big list of PACE MPs, who through centuries our Assembly used to serve the political interest of Azerbaijan and conceal the ongoing anti-democratic processes in that country, for which millions of dollars have been received from the Laundromat black cash machine. Afterwards the report presented by our colleague Petra De Sutter considered undeniable the facts existing in the report of the independent committee on Azerbaijan and together with PACE Bureau called on more active players of Azerbaijani Laundromat to lay down PACE MP’s mandate. At this moment only Cezar Preda has laid down his mandate. The other active players of Laundromat continue being stubborn. Thus, I call on the Assembly to remain faithful to the slogan ‘towards zero tolerance corruption’ declared by itself and demand that the small and big all players of the Azerbaijani laundry lay down PACE MP’s mandate. Touching upon the report of the independent investigative body, the CoE Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland has announced that Pedro Agramunt is the biggest fish of that report. I think that not only the biggest, but also the smallest fish should lay down their mandate, as a shark defiling the authority of our organisation can grow from the smallest paedocypris progenetica fish,” the Member of the RA NA delegation to PACE Naira Zohrabyan said.