A German former parliamentarian was sentenced today to nine months in prison with a suspended jail term for a corruption case at the Council of Europe, known as Caviargate. Edward Lindner, 80, a former member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, was accused of receiving several million euros from Azerbaijan between 2008 and 2016 through shell companies and distributing some of it to other CSCE members to vote for Azerbaijan or speak positively about it in the media.

“It was a classic case of vote-buying,” the judge’s ruling in Munich, Germany, said, among other things.

Azerbaijan, a member of the Council of Europe since 2001, is often criticized for human rights violations.

One of the main missions of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is to defend human rights.

Mr. Lindner, Germany’s former State Secretary of the Interior, argued that it was all done completely legally in order to exert political influence. His interpretation was rejected by the court.

The former Bundestag member (1976-2009) had agreed, among other things, in 2014 with German conservative MP Karin Strents that he would vote for Azerbaijan in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in exchange for about 7,500 euros per month.

The court ruling says that Streds’ heir, who died in 2021, will have to repay 110,000 euros – the total amount she had received from Azerbaijan for her services.

During the trial, which began last January, four defendants appeared in court, but two of them secured a stay of criminal proceedings by paying a fine. The third defendant, Conservative MP Axel Fischer – who was allegedly recruited by Lindner – fell ill and his trial was postponed until the autumn.

The case has been dubbed “Caviargate” because several officials were allegedly offered caviar, carpets and accommodation in luxury hotels in Baku in exchange for voting against – in January 2013 – a report on political prisoners in that former Soviet republic.