German police raided offices and other premises linked to an MP from Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party and a former lawmaker on Thursday in a corruption case with ties to Azerbaijan.
Prosecutors in Frankfurt said that around a hundred officers were involved in a series of raids which targeted Karin Strenz, an MP for the CDU, and Eduard Lintner, a former lawmaker for its Bavarian sister party.
Searches were carried out in the federal states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Bavaria, as well as in Berlin and in Belgium after Strenz' parliamentary immunity was lifted earlier Thursday.
Strenz and Lintner are suspected of illegally accepting money to lobby for the government of Azerbaijan. According to prosecutors, Strenz received 22,000 euros ($24,000) to represent Azerbaijan's interests at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
The 52-year-old has already been fined 20,000 euros over a similar accusation last year.
Lintner, a former state secretary in the German interior ministry, is suspected of receiving around four million euros from Azerbaijan between 2008 and 2016 via a British letterbox firm.
The 75-year-old allegedly distributed this money among other PACE members in return for them making positive statements in the media about Azerbaijani elections.
Lintner has rejected the accusations, telling German broadcaster ARD that the payments related to a "a normal business arrangement".
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