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A Munich court sentenced former Bundestag member Eduard Lintner to a nine-month suspended prison term after convicting him of bribing public officials on behalf of Azerbaijan’s authoritarian government. It was the first time a German lawmaker has been found guilty of such an offense.
Lintner, 80, who pleaded not guilty, maintained throughout the six-month trial that his support for Azerbaijan amounted to legitimate lobbying driven by “honorable motives.” But on Wednesday, the Munich Higher Regional Court ruled that payments he channeled to other politicians were, in fact, bribes.
A Bundestag lawmaker for 33 years, Lintner was implicated in the so-called Azerbaijani Laundromat — a vast money-laundering and influence-peddling scheme exposed in 2017 by OCCRP and its media partners. Azerbaijan’s ruling elite used a $2.9 billion slush fund to enrich themselves and pay European politicians to polish the country's image amid international criticism of its human rights record.
The case centered on Azerbaijan’s covert efforts to buy influence at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the continent’s top human rights body. Lintner served as a delegate to PACE until 2010.
A court spokesperson confirmed to OCCRP that a confiscation order worth €111,330 ($127,776) had been issued against a third party in the case, representing “the value of proceeds from the offense.”
According to a court press release, prosecutors are seeking to recover the funds from the widower of Karin Strenz, a former Bundestag and PACE member who died in 2021. The court found that Strenz accepted bribes from both Lintner’s company — after his PACE tenure — and from Azerbaijani officials in exchange for promoting Baku’s interests in Strasbourg.
“This decision marks the first conviction for bribery of a Bundestag member under Section 108e of the German Criminal Code (StGB),” the court statement said.
The judgment is not final as both the defense and the Munich Public Prosecutor General’s Office have the right to appeal to the Federal Court of Justice within one week.
Transparency International welcomed the ruling. “Authorities in other countries linked to the Azerbaijani Laundromat scheme should follow Germany’s example and take action to ensure that those who took bribes and helped whitewash repression do not escape scrutiny,” said CEO Maíra Martini in a press release.
Two other defendants — a former staffer and a relative of Lintner — confessed and had their cases dropped. Proceedings against a fourth suspect, former Christian Democratic Union lawmaker Axel Fischer, have been delayed due to illness.
