Earlier in December, the Belgian police arrested the Vice President of the European Parliament and Greek politician Eva Kaili and her father Alexandros Kailis, as well as the ex-Italian MEP as part of the Socialist Group Pier Antonio Panzeri and General Secretary of International Trade Union Confederation Luca Visentini as they raided their houses and discovered 1.6 billion euros in cash.

The arrests were related to the FIFA World Cup held in Qatar. AzVision previously published an extensive article on the scandal, gently dubbed Qatargate in the international media. The corruption scheme turned out to be much deeper than initially imagined. Politico reports that the police raided 20 addresses in Belgium, Italy, and Greece. Investigations and interrogations have revealed that the European parliamentarians have accepted bribes from Morocco and Qatar to host the World Cup Qatar.

The Qatargate will probably turn into one of the biggest scandals in the recent history of Europe, with many more details yet to be revealed. Eva Kaili intends to drag several other Euro-officials down below the water when she finds herself sinking. One end of the scandal may even go to Josep Borrell. 60 members of the European Parliament are believed to be currently involved in the corruption scheme. Interestingly, we can also see the traces of the international Armenian diaspora in the plot.

Sinner ‘Eve’

Kaili studied architecture and civil engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She continued her studies at the University of Piraeus where she obtained a Master of Arts degree in International and European affairs. Before her political career, Kaili was a newscaster from 2004 until 2007. She was elected to the European Parliament from the Greek PASOK party in 2014, becoming a member of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats Group. She was then expelled in 2022.

Eva also worked on Middle East issues as the Vice President of the European Parliament. Thus, the Middle East matter, bribery for lobbying the World Cup in Qatar to be more precise.

Power structures have conducted 14 raids in Brussels and surrounding communes discovered and confiscated a total of 600,000 euros in cash, numerous computer equipment and mobile phones. Several of Kaili’s accomplices and henchmen have also been detained.

They are, in fact, a bit delayed in arresting this lady for corruption, who got to enjoy the AP vice-president chair with exactly zero merits. Kaili’s biased statement – joined with a group of colleagues – against Azerbaijan on 19 November last should have been a serious wakeup call for many. The same applies to all of the 33 MPs, who supported the statement. Of course, it comes as no surprise that all the supports of this statement, actively supervised by Eva Kaili, represent the ‘Armenia Friendship Group’.

Calling on the EP to prevent ‘Azerbaijan’s territorial claims against Armenia’, the group’s intimate cooperation with the European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy (EAFJD) is also little wonder. No one excludes that Eva Kaili might have been appointed the seat in the European Parliament by the European Armenian diaspora for the said services. If the law enforcement carry out an objective investigation, the case will surely unravel, leading to the questioning of Kaspar Karampetian, President of the EAFJD.

Lobbying of a Diamond Smuggler

Considered one of the founders of the ‘mafia lobby’ criminal machine, Kaspar Karampetian amassed his wealth through diamond smuggling. Karampetian, a Greek citizen, known as the head of Armenian lobby in Brussels had spent his teenage years in Beirut. He later returned to Greece for some time to work in the trade. His next move was to Belgium, where he bought jewellery stalls. He dealt with certifying and selling polished diamonds – smuggled from Africa’s conflict regions to Belgium – to European brand names through corrupt schemes.

Currently citizen of Armenia, Greece, and Luxembourg, Kaspar Karampetian is at the forefront of anti-Azerbaijan lobbying as the EAFJD president in Belgium.

Karampetian organized the visits of some European politicians, who fed on Armenian donations, to our occupied territories, thus encouraging them to adopt decisions supporting the separatist regime that existed in Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region. His anti-Azerbaijan operations escalated some more after Armenia’s defeat in the April 2016 battles.

In June 2016, Bako Sahakyan, the head of the separatist regime in Karabakh at the time, met with PACE member Piet De Bruyn in Belgium. Karampetian participated as well. In September of the same year Karen Mirzoyan, ‘Minister of Foreign Affairs’ of Nagorno-Karabakh, travelled to Belgium on a business trip, accompanied by Karampetian, to mark the 25 years of ‘independence’ of the separatist regime.

The ‘delegation’ joined the round table discussions at the European Parliament and met the former president of the EU Armenia Friendship Group Eleni Theocharous and other members of the group. The first president of the group (launched in 2013) Theocharous, a doctor from Cyprus, had previously participated in various humanitarian aid missions in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. The Armenian separatists awarded her the title of ‘Honorary Citizen of Khankendi’ on 28 September 2018 for her ‘services’. But what impressed Ms. Eleni even more than the honorary title was the valuable necklace and a gold ingot attached to it.

Frank Engel, MEP from Luxembourg, and president of the Group of Friendship with ‘Artsakh’ within the European Parliament, who Mirzoyan also met during his trip, is also one of those state-mongers who regularly acts as a defender of the separatist regime, which also deeply rooted. The Armenian lobby quickly sensed the Honorary Consul of Armenia to Luxembourg (since 2006) Engel’s thirst for love and swiftly found him an Armenian wife, Tatev Manukyan. Suffice it to remember the extreme anti-Azerbaijani position demonstrated by the late academician Sakharov, whose reins were strictly controlled by his Armenian wife Yelena Bonner, and we are no longer surprised with the radical pro-Armenianism by Manukyan’s ‘husband’ Engel.

On 15 March 2017, Karampetian gather several MEPs at a fine brasserie Le Bartholdi Pub in Strasbourg and brought them to our occupied territories soon afterward. This time it was several Belgian parliamentarians – Andre du Bus de Warnaffe, Emmanuel de Bock, and Pierre Kompany – who swallowed his bait. The list was then extended to include parliamentarian Joris Poschet.

The leader of the separatist regime in Karabakh Bako Sahakyan travelled to Belgium in October of the same year. He first met with a group of Flemish MPs and participated in the founding ceremony of the Flanders Nagorno-Karabakh Friendship Group, which started at the initiative of the EAFJD. The group’s main objective was established as ‘saving the population of Nagorno Karabakh from isolation’. The MPs Piet De Bruyn, Joris Poschet and Paul Gaurdin especially stand out among the group members.

MEPs Maria Spyraki, Eleni Theocharous and Manolis Kefalogiannis outstood as sponsors of an event held at the EP on 19 October. The speakers at the event included Edward Nalbandian, the Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, MEP Frank Engel and Aram I, Catholicos of the Armenian Church of Cilicia.

MEP Martin Sonneborn travelled to Armenia in late August 2018, accompanied by the EAFJD President Karampetian and Heghine Evinyan, responsible for liaison with the EU, where the MEP met with the country’s new Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. The next day, he went to Karabakh on a visit along with Dan Bilzerian, a famous American-Armenian poker player and millionaire. Bilzerian’s trip was put together after he had been granted Armenian citizenship.

MEP Sonneborn, who represents Germany in the EP, is the founder and federal chairman of Germany’s Die PARTEI since 2014. The party lists restoring the Berlin Wall around Germany as one of its objectives. The German MEP had been a star of a scandal back in 2000, having born gifts to FIFA officials to vote on holding the World Cup in Germany in 2006. The European parliamentarian was also largely criticized for some of his ‘jokes’ on satirical programs on German’s famous ZDF TV channel.

Hikmat Hajiyev, the press secretary of Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry at the time, Advisor to the President of Azerbaijan now, had made a very interesting statement on Sonneborn’s trip to Nagorno-Karabakh.

‘Kaspar Karampetian, who steers the Armenian lobby in Brussels, can only drag clown politicians to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan out of desperation, despite spending significant amounts. Because sane people, who are aware of the realities of the conflict, the facts of occupation and bloody ethnic cleansing, understand who’s who and avoid such endeavours. I wonder who will be next in the clow parade. The Kardashian sisters?’ Hikmat Hajiyev had inquired.

Back in 2014-2018 Kaspar Karampetian was declared wanted by Interpol for illegally crossing the state border of Azerbaijan and visiting Karabakh. Despite all of this, he has been continuing lobbying against Azerbaijan and involving certain European politicians in exchange for large donations, thus trying to further spread the metastasis of corruption in European institutions.

In September 2019 Karampetian organized a trip to Cyprus – which maintains close relations with Armenia – for representatives of the separatist regime in Karabakh.

With an Armenian population of only 3-3.5 thousand, Cyprus is the centre of the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party-Ramgavar, as well as organizations such as the Pharos and Kalaydjian Foundations, which proves that they are granted special privileges. There is a reason that in early February 2020 it was the MEP from Cyprus Costas Mavrides who hosted the conference on ‘The forgotten refugees: What happened to the Armenians of Baku?’ in the European Parliament.

Karampetian flared up some more after Armenia’s defeat in the Second Karabakh War. He played the key role in having the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies adopt a biased resolution on Karabakh on 25 December 2020. The pro-Armenian member of the Christian Social People’s Party, Claude Wiseler put forward the resolution, where he distorted the realities of the region and made groundless accusations against Azerbaijan and Turkey.

The 30th anniversary of Armenia’s independence was celebrated at the re-launch event of the EP Armenia ‘friendship group’ on 9 November last year. This time around, Cypriot MEP Loucas Fourlas was entrusted with heading the group.

In late January this year Arman Tatoyan, former Human Rights Defender of Armenia, travelled to Brussels on a 3-day visit, jointly organized by EAFJD and the Armenian Embassy in Belgium. The Ombudsman spoke of Armenia’s position in the Second Karabakh War in his meetings with high-ranking officials of the European Union.

Karampetian however had his own interpretation for the visit: ‘Mr. Tatoyan and his team did a lot of documentation work. It was important for us that the political circles of the European Union could receive first-hand information and facts. We will continue our consistent activities in the EU, raise awareness on the current situation and stand up to defend the rights of the Armenian people.’

He also participated in the conference ‘Human rights and the Artsakh War 2020’ at the EP, co-organized by the ‘Hay Dat’ Committee of Europe of the Dashnaktsutyun Armenian Revolutionary Federation and hosted by the MEP from Netherlands Peter van Dalen on 8 September.

Karampetian, now 70, is known to involve European MPs and statesmen in his anti-Azerbaijan lobbying and to host various ‘philanthropic’ events to cover their interests. He confessed on one of his social accounts that they managed to collect 3,800,000 euros worth of donations in just one gala dinner, hosted last year in Brussels to support separatists.

Studies by Italy’s Sovranita Popolare analytical centre have nicknamed Karampetian, engaged in the diamond business, the godfather of the Armenian mafia in Belgium. A hefty part of his illegal income is spent on financing the separatists in Karabakh. Karampetian was awarded the ‘Mkhitar Gosh’ order by the President of Armenia, and the ‘Vachagan Barepasht’ medal by the ‘leader’ of the separatist regime in 2014 for his lobbying activities in Europe in support of Armenia’s aggressive policy and the Armenian separatist regime in Karabakh.

Deeming all these awards insufficient, the Armenian president presented him with the ‘Mesrop Mashtots’ order in 2018. Encouraged by the awards, Karampetian demonstrated great zeal in mobilizing PKK terrorists from abroad to fight for Armenia in the Second Karabakh War.

Karampetian is also noted to work with Vartan Sirmakes, the ‘Godfather of the Armenian mafia in Switzerland’.

He co-founded Franck Muller Group in 1998 together with Franck Muller. He is also the president of ‘ArmSwissBank’ and the consul general of Armenia in Marseille, France. The Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s Office has opened a criminal case against him for illegally using gold mined in Vejnali village in Zangilan for the designs of their Franck Muller watches.

Trusting the MPs and officials he bribed in Europe, Karampetian has become so brazen that he is threatening the mass media that exposed his criminal activities in Azerbaijan. After Eynulla Fatullayev’s ‘The Kaspar Case: Special services, diamonds and blood’ article was published on haqqin.az website, Karampetian’s lawyer addressed a letter to the editors of the website, demanding a retraction. The criminal couple threatened that Fatullayev would otherwise be brought to criminal responsibility under Article 443 of the Belgian Criminal Code.

It is really interesting to see how the peaks of the AP will react to the threats of criminals who have won over Eleni Theocharous with an expensive necklace and a gold ingot, Frank Engel with an Armenian wife Tatev Manukyan and Pieter Omtzigt with an Armenian boyfriend Karen Ohajanyan. Will they even react?

We can only wait and see.

Sahil Isgandarov, political analyst

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