In relations with Azerbaijan, Germany chose...Armenian mafia

German mainstream media continue their synchronous attacks on Azerbaijan, Report informs with reference to Caliber.az.

Not less than a whole column was devoted to “Azerbaijani lobbying” in Germany on the 5th page of the March 28 issue of the authoritative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Once again, the thesis was voiced that supposedly a whole network of German MPs, mainly from the federal land of Baden-Württemberg, worked day and night in the interests of remote Azerbaijan - either for a spoonful of black caviar or for petrodollars and expensive gifts. However, none of the allegations on any of the alleged lobbyist MPs have yet been proven by German investigating authorities, let alone the existence of any court decisions. As the Honorary Consul of Azerbaijan in Germany Otto Hauser reasonably stated in his interview with the Stuttgarter Zeitung, it is extremely important for him to observe the "presumption of innocence."

In this context, one cannot but recall the story of close ties between German politicians and the Armenian mafia, which has received a wide resonance in Germany. At the beginning of last year, German crime reports were replete with news of criminal actions by immigrants from the Caucasian republics. The German police have been fighting against the Caucasian "ethnocriminals" for many years. At the same time, it is the Armenian mafia that is consolidating its positions in the east of Germany. At the end of 2019, the case already began to take a political turn after the German state TV channels made it clear that the octopus of the Armenian crime had already reached the Bundestag members.

In January 2020, German public TV channels reported on raids against alleged members of the Armenian mafia suspected of forging documents in Erfurt, central German state of Thuringia. A little earlier, an incident with a 36-year-old Armenian auto-hooligan in the same city made criminal headlines. When the police were able to stop the "rowdy man", it turned out that he was an old acquaintance of law enforcement officers - the man is one of the leaders of the Armenian mafia in Erfurt. His criminal history goes back to 2014 when he was in the dock for taking part in a shootout in front of a casino in Erfurt, which rocked the whole of Germany. Fifteen Armenian immigrants took part in the incident. The Armenian-German world boxing champion Karo Murat was also spotted in that high-profile case. German investigators suspected Murat of participating in a shootout in front of a gaming club, but then his brother Koko Murat unexpectedly confessed to visiting the gaming club. But, according to the public TV channel ARD, Karo Murat's mobile phone and personal car were in the area of the shootout that day.

Another detail did not escape the attention of the German police: for several years, many participants of the shootout used mobile phones registered to the Berlin company of another famous German boxer of Armenian origin Arthur Abraham. Abraham, in addition to sports, is also engaged in the real estate business. Abraham chose not to respond to repeated inquiries from German journalists about his connections with the suspects. In the documentary "Exakt - die Story: Paten in Deutschland" by the first German public television channel ARD, Abraham is described as one of the central figures of the Armenian mafia in Germany.

The drug trade, counterfeit money, manipulation of sports betting, gambling, organization of illegal migration, legalization of "black capital" through controlled real estate companies - this is just an incomplete list of spheres of interests of Armenian criminal groups that have taken root in Germany. At the same time, in the best mafia traditions, they establish close contacts with German politicians.

Vicious ties in the Bundestag

By a strange coincidence, one of the most active lobbyists of Armenia in the German Bundestag is an MP from Thuringia - Manfred Grund (CDU). Moreover, Grund is a member of parliament elected directly from Eichsfeld County, where the high-profile shootout took place in 2014. Furthermore, a few years ago, the parliamentarian made an illegal trip to Nagorno-Karabakh, and after a short while he hired an Armenian named Andranik Aslanyan, also a native of Nagorno-Karabakh. Although Aslanyan appears as a “scientific assistant” of the MP, he has a second job as a realtor, director of the “ELASE” company, which was especially noted by the German public television. Aslanyan's company makes real estate transactions in Leipzig, where criminal boxer Karo Murat also owns houses. Aslanyan was also seen organizing a marathon in Germany to raise money for militants of the unrecognized "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic" in 2016. How “transparently” these funds were subsequently distributed, we could see by the example of the case of the “stew general” Manvel Grigoryan, and also by the results of the 2020 war that Armenia lost.

In the ARD's documentary, special attention is paid to another CDU deputy, Albert Weiler. Just like Manfred Grund, he represents a Thuringia constituency in parliament. Weiler heads the German-Armenian Forum and has ties to Arthur Abraham and other alleged members of the Armenian mafia. The German media note that among the founders of the German-Armenian Forum there are also persons whose names are mentioned in the case of the Armenian mafia. Amazingly, another member of Weiler's office, Alla Serobyan, is also from Armenia.

Thus, two deputies representing the CDU in Bundestag from Thuringia, the main region where the Armenian mafia is based in Germany, keep Armenian employees (or curators?) in staff, are in contact with representatives of the Armenian criminal world, and are also ardent lobbyists of Armenia in the German parliament! Moreover, both MPs maintain close ties with the Armenian Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany Ashot Smbatyan, a figure whom the media and investigators directly associate with the Armenian mafia. “Judging by the confidential conclusion drawn up in 2008 by the German federal intelligence service, the acting Ambassador of the Republic of Armenia to Germany Ashot Smbatyan was suspected ten years ago of participating in the illegal transfer of refugees across the border. In the document, he is even referred to as a "thief in law." (...) In 2005, the prosecutor's office conducted an investigation against Smbatyan on suspicion of money laundering, ”the German newspaper Spiegel reported back in November 2018.

Despite the resonant publications in the media, deputies from the ruling party Grund and Weiler did not provide the public with explanations about their more than suspicious connections with the Armenian “thieves' world”. It would seem that the German media should have started writing about deputies who are clinging with the Armenian mafia, as they are doing now in the case of parliamentarians who are well-disposed to Azerbaijan. But something inexplicable happens: as if by magic, the case was quickly "covered up" in the media. Courts and journalists suddenly recalled the "presumption of innocence" and even the "business reputation" of the mafiosi ambassador of Armenia Ashot Smbatyan. That is, the leading European democracy simply forbade its journalists to write about Smbatyan in the context of the mafia case. Can you then believe in the impartiality of the German state and the objectivity of the German media? After the publication of a joint investigation by Spiegel and MDR in November 2018, the topic of the Armenian mafia was present in the information field of Germany, however, it had absolutely no consequences for Manfred Grund, Albert Weiler and their Armenian employees. The investigation by the German Criminal Police (BKA), code-named FATIL ("Fight against thieves in law"), aimed at fighting Armenian criminal groups, was suspended ... due to lack of funding from the state. As they say, no comment - if there was the political will, the richest country in Europe could have found money for one investigation.

Is it bad to supply lung ventilators and good to work for Armenia mafia?

To be fair, it should be noted that in private conversations some German experts and political scientists never tire of repeating that in the current campaign about Azerbaijani lobbying, official Baku is not to blame, and the Karabakh factor does not play a role in the current situation. The problem, allegedly, lies in the internal German political kitchen: Angela Merkel will leave the political scene this fall, and now the left spectrum, represented by socialists and greens, is striving for power after 16 years of continuous dominance of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Journalists in Germany mostly sympathize with these political forces, and today, they say, Azerbaijan is only a means in the internal political struggle, but not the goal of the campaign.

However, the question arises here, why is the scandal with the work of German deputies from the same “unloved” CDU for the Armenian mafia not used as a “means”? After all, this is a much more piquant story than a far-fetched article about the allegedly "politically motivated" supply of ventilators from Germany to Azerbaijan, which was literally immediately refuted by both the supplier company and the German Ministry of Economy. How to understand the logic of the German media: you cannot send ventilators to Azerbaijan, but you can work for the Armenian mafia, which is engaged in the dirtiest, criminal business.

Has Berlin committed itself to a withdrawal from the region?

In its information attacks on Azerbaijan and campaigns to purposefully turn it into a "toxic country" for any German politicians who dared to support Baku, Germany did not answer the central question: what kind of dangerous or simply negative activity for the country was posed by the notorious "Azerbaijani network" in Germany? What, for example, was the “sin” of the persecuted Bundestag deputy Karin Shtrenz, who had recently died suddenly of a heart attack? Even today, after her death, in their venomous and caustic publications, the German media continue to dance on her bones. Meanwhile, Strenz was one of the few politicians who had the courage and charisma to openly call Armenia an occupier and, without "European political correctness", directly demand from Yerevan to get out of Azerbaijani territories. Apparently, she was never forgiven for this.

But was Germany not the first among the major European countries to shut down the so-called "NKR embassy" shortly before the start of Azerbaijan's 44-day war against Armenia? Berlin has consistently recognized the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, but after the start of the war in 2020, the most unpopular foreign minister in German history, Heiko Maas, made a very unwise diplomatic move: he threatened Baku to "reconsider Germany's neutrality" in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in favor of Armenia if the Azerbaijani offensive will not be immediately stopped. As expected, Ilham Aliyev did not stop the operation of the Azerbaijani army to liberate the occupied territories, despite shouts from Berlin and other world capitals - exactly until he forced the Armenians to surrender on November 10, 2020.

As a result, in November last year, political Europe, which relied on the preservation of the conflict and tacit support for the Armenian occupation, was thrown overboard by the new Caucasian realities. And, while for Paris, with its tough pro-Armenian drifts in foreign policy, it was difficult to avoid such a fate, Berlin had every chance to maintain trusting relations with Baku and even bring them to a new level. But it seems that Germany has decided to leave Azerbaijan's outstretched hand of friendship hanging in the air and to reduce its activities in the region to an absolute minimum. This means that issues such as the activities of German foundations in our country, activity in post-conflict settlement, as well as the participation of German companies in the restoration of the occupied territories, are automatically removed from the agenda - in favor of more friendly countries, including European.