German court issues arrest warrant for former Bundestag member  suspected of lobbying for Azerbaijan in exchange for bribes

ArmInfo.  A German court has issued an arrest warrant for former Bundestag member Axel Fischer, suspected of lobbying for Azerbaijan in exchange for bribes.  

According to DW, Axel Fischer was subsequently taken to a pretrial  detention center. The former member of parliament repeatedly missed  court hearings, and before the last one, he checked himself into a  clinic.  However, court-appointed experts determined that Fischer  could have attended at least two of the hearings he had missed. He  was ultimately detained at a hospital in Bad Sackingen. Fischer's  lawyers have filed an appeal.

At the court hearing on December 22, the former member of parliament  pleaded not guilty. New hearings are scheduled for December 23 and  early January. He will remain in the pretrial detention center of  Munich's Stadelheim Prison until at least the first of these. The  statute of limitations on one of the key charges expires in January,  but law enforcement officials are confident the court will reach a  decision in time.

Axel Fischer served as a member of the Bundestag for the Christian  Democratic Union from 1998 to 2021, and since 2010, as a member of  the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In 2018, it was  revealed that some PACE members had received bribes from the  Azerbaijani government to lobby for their interests in Europe.  Investigators believe that Fischer, in exchange for money, voted in  ways that Baku desired, made pro-Azerbaijani statements, and handed  over confidential documents. According to these data, the former  Bundestag member from the CDU received 58,000 euros for this in  2011-2014, and another 26,300 euros in 2015-2016.