The National Democracy Institute (NDI) has spread a report dismissing the accusations put forward in Azerbaijani press regarding the activity of this organization in Azerbaijan.

According to the report, NDI considers all accusation `completely groundless`

NDI is authorized to declare

“The repetition of untrue information does not make it true”, NDI president Kenneth Wollack said.

The information, spread by the institution, says that `NDI and its local partners held the organizers of the public community, young leaders and other citizens in their peaceful and constructive cooperation with local authorities for the improvement of their communities”.

The NDI activity in relation to Azerbaijani authorities was completely transparent, the statement says.

In line with the disseminated reports, all financing means allocated to the NDI office and its representatives in Baku were used solely for the goals of the organization.

The report also says that the NDI office has been registered at the Ministry of Justice of Azerbaijan. In line with this registration, NDI submits financial reporting to the Ministry of Finance, as required by the law.

Accusations of sponsoring projects in Azerbaijan

Earlier several Azerbaijani mass media set accusations towards NDI of sponsoring the protest action in Azerbaijan for the purpose of organizing the next `Facebook` revolution. In particular, it is noted that within a short period of time Alex Grigorievs, heading the office of the organization in Baku, received $2m to this account which were then removed within a short period of time and used for the unofficial sponsoring of the protest movement.

The articles on this issue took a short trip into the `duty list` of Grigorievs who was repeatedly noticed in formation of coups in the post-Soviet area.

Representatives of the Azerbaijan`s Presidential Administration also voiced their opinion on these accusations.

“Azerbaijani government is studying information in media regarding the activity of the US National Democracy Institutue”, chief of the public policy department of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan, Ali Hasanov said while promising to give the due assessment by completion of inspections.

In turn, Alex Grigoriev tried to deny the accusations.

Nonetheless, right after the publication of this comment, several mass media published the material that the employees of the NDI office in Azerbaijan took an active part in the unsanctioned meeting that took place on 10 March. In particular, one of them- Ruslan Asad was mentioned as one of the active organizers of the action.

It was also noted that during the protest, former head of the NDI office in Baku Arien de Wolff posted a number of messages in Twitter, supporting the idea of coup in Azerbaijan. He responded ironically and insulted everyone who tried to oppose him.

A letter of the prosecutor general

After a while, the `Bizil yol` newspaper published information that came from an anonymous source in the Foreign Ministry, according to which general prosecutor Zakir Garalov sent a letter to US ambassador Richard Morningstar about the activity of the NDI office in Azerbaijan.

The letter says that the articles in press about the shortcomings in the activity of the NDI office caused a great public resonance.

The inspections held by the prosecution bodies revealed that the NGI office issued grants via its offices and regional information centers in Baku, Ganja, Tovuz, Shirvan, Yevlakh, Shaki, Khachmaz and Jalilabad which were not registered and certified in the duly manner to the detriment of a number of laws.

Also by results of the reporting period the NDI office did not sent the annual financial reports to the respective body of executive power and violated laws. In addition, it was revealed that the head of the offices Alex Grigorievs withdrew $1,007,990,44 from his account in the International Bank from 2 March 2010 until 13 December 2012 and did not provide information about the purposes of these funds.

NDI has not yet provided any serious response about the cash used by Grigorievs earlier. According to some experts, such a silence causes some suspicions about the groundness of accusations put forward against the NDI.

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