Lover And Aide Claims MP Mike Hancock Urged Lobby Group To Pay Her
by Melanie Newman
Bureau of Investigative Journalism
Nov 18 2011
Liberal Democrat MP Mike Hancock solicited cash from a controversial
organisation for his parliamentary aide and lover Katerina Zatuliveter,
according to allegations in papers filed at the Special Immigration
Appeals Commission.
Ms Zatuliveter, who has been accused of being a Russian spy while
having an affair with the MP, said Mr Hancock approached The European
Azerbaijan Society (TEAS) on her behalf in the middle of 2009, when
he was a member of the hugely important defence select committee.
Mr Hancock has not denied the claim but he refuted a suggestion Ms
Zatuliveter was lobbying for TEAS while simultaneously acting as
his researcher.
Ms Zatuliveter’s statement, made in her appeal against deportation
for suspected espionage on behalf of Russia, says she had spent £2000
on legal fees relating to her visa and was running into financial
problems.
She added: ‘Mike was also very worried about my financial situation
and what would happen to me. He suggested to The European Azerbaijan
Society that they might pay me for the lobbying and consultancy work
that I had done for them as his parliamentary researcher over a number
of months. They very kindly made a payment of £3,000 to me on the 22
June which is referenced in my bank accounts’.
As the Bureau has previously revealed, TEAS is a lobby group whose
funding sources are unclear and which is run by the sons of a powerful
Azeri minister.
Around a month before the payment Mr Hancock hosted a discussion for
TEAS at Portcullis House on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict in the
Nagorno-Karabakh region. He was also a speaker at a TEAS reception
in September 2009.
The Bureau asked Mr Hancock, who was a member of the defence select
committee at the time of the payment but has since resigned from this
position, whether he had asked TEAS to pay Ms Zatuliveter.
A spokesman for the MP replied: ‘Mike is aware that Ms Zatuliveter
assisted on a project for The European Azerbaijan Society. She had
friends in Azerbaijan and got in contact with the society while working
in Parliament. Any work she did was in her own spare time and was of
her own volition. He was never informed of how much Ms Zatuliveter
was paid and he does not know when they paid her for the work she did.’
Ms Zatuliveter told the Commission her work for TEAS included
organising a photographic exhibition in Parliament on the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Neither the work for TEAS or the payment
appears in the Commons register of interests of members’ secretaries
and research assistants for 2009-10. The spokesman for Mr Hancock said:
‘All staff working in Parliament and in Mike’s office are informed
of the requirements to register interests.’
A spokesman for TEAS said: ‘It is a matter of public record that Ms
Zatuliveter assisted us with a photographic exhibition highlighting
the plight of the 865,000 refugees and internally displaced persons,
together with an event for the Azerbaijani community, for which her
fee was £3,000. She had attended some of our previous events, and
offered her assistance in a private capacity. We used her because
at the time TEAS was quite small and new to the UK, and did not have
sufficient internal resources.’
In February 2009 Mr Hancock also tabled an Early Day Motion calling
for the conflict to be resolved and highlighting the UK’s position
as the largest foreign investor in Azerbaijan. His spokesman said:
‘EDM 893 stemmed from Mike’s work on the British delegation to the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and had nothing
to do with The European Azerbaijan Society. He has a longstanding
interest in the region going back to the breakup of the USSR in the
late 1980s and early 1990s.’
Earlier this year the Guardian reported that Conservative MP Mark
Field was a paid member of the TEAS advisory board while also sitting
on the intelligence and security committee, which scrutinises the
security services. The newspaper suggested Mr Field’s position with
TEAS created a conflict of interest, which was denied by Mr Field.
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/11/18/mike-hancock-urged-lobby-group-to-pay-lover-aide-claims/