Figure in "Caviar Diplomacy" Scandal Sentenced in Germany

The Munich Higher Regional Court has sentenced Eduard Lintner, a former member of the Bundestag for the Christian Social Union, to a nine-month suspended sentence in the so-called "Azerbaijan case" involving bribery. The news was reported by DW, citing the AFP agency.

Additionally, the court ordered the confiscation of approximately €110,000 from the heir of another former Bundestag member, Karin Strenz. Strenz allegedly received this money from Lintner.

The "Azerbaijan case" defendants included politicians Axel Fischer from Karlsruhe and Eduard Lintner from the Bavarian district of Lower Franconia. Fischer was accused of bribery, while Lintner was accused of bribing elected officials to influence decisions in favor of Azerbaijan within the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

According to the investigation, Lintner, who served in PACE starting in 2010, received several million euros in 2016 through 19 shell companies. Investigators believe he then passed a portion of this money to other PACE deputies to influence decisions in his favor.

The verdict indicates that in 2014, Lintner reached an agreement with Strenz for her to vote in PACE in Azerbaijan's interest in exchange for about €7,500 per month.

Eduard Lintner claimed that this was "perfectly normal lobbying," but the court rejected this argument.

In March 2021, Strenz died on a flight from Cuba to Germany. The court had previously stripped her of her immunity.

Proceedings against two other defendants were dropped after they paid a fine. The case against Fischer will resume in the fall, following a pause due to his health.

The scandal over bribing PACE members became public in 2012 with the release of the report "Caviar Diplomacy: How Azerbaijan silenced the Council of Europe," compiled by the German NGO European Stability Initiative (ESI). In 2016, a second part of the report was published, revealing the bribery of PACE deputies to block resolutions that condemned Azerbaijan for the political persecution of its citizens.

In the wake of the "caviar diplomacy" scandal, PACE launched its own investigation.

On June 27, 2018, the PACE Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities, and Institutional Affairs, based on a report from an independent investigative body, permanently banned 14 deputies from accessing Council of Europe buildings and events. Two Azerbaijani deputies who were serving at the time, Muslim Mammadov and Elkhan Suleymanov, were among those sanctioned.