Your trusted source

An investigation into alleged corruption in the Council of Europe has revealed there is "strong suspicion" that current and former members have flouted codes of conduct and "engaged in activity of a corruptive nature" amid efforts by Azerbaijan to whitewash its human rights record.

According to Euronews report, the 198-page report, published on Sunday, said individuals had accepted bribes in the form of hotel stays, luxury goods and prostitutes by Azerbaijan's lobbyists.

Referring to a prior investigation in 2016, it read: "Expensive carpets worth thousands of euros had been given as gifts; so many that one Azerbaijani embassy had had its own room for them."

The paper also noted an apparent "lack of transparency and sufficient regulation" of appointments to the Monitoring and Rules committees and voting processes which might have opened the door to the "exertion of improper influence, including that of a financial nature".

The inquiry was sparked by the "Caviargate" scandal of 2013, which suggested members of the human rights body had accepted bribes to vote down a report asserting the existence of political prisoners in Azerbaijan.

Michele Nicoletti, who was elected president of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) in January, told reporters Sunday: "The parliamentarians involved are invited to suspend their activity while a (PACE) committee examines their situation on a case-by-case basis."

The Council aims to uphold human rights and the rule of law on the continent. It is comprised of 324 parliamentarians from 47 member states, 28 of which are from the European Union.

Global anti-corruption body Transparency International welcomed their investigation's findings, in which former president Pedro Agramunt and his links to Azerbaijan and its state oil company SOCAR were cited.