National Crime Agency Investigation: Javad Marandi Debate

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Department: Home Office

National Crime Agency Investigation: Javad Marandi

Kit Malthouse Excerpts
Tuesday 16th May 2023

(1 year, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

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Alison Thewliss Portrait Alison Thewliss
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Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker.

The news this morning that Javad Marandi has lost a 19-month legal battle with the BBC to remain anonymous is a victory for transparency and freedom of the press in a battle often weighted in favour of wealthy oligarchs. It also goes to the heart of our democracy. Although it is incumbent on me to state that Mr Marandi denies any wrongdoing, and I note that his lawyers emailed me just five minutes ago, the National Crime Agency has found that companies linked to him are a crucial part of the money laundering network known as the Azerbaijani laundromat. Credit must go to Martin Bentham of the Evening Standard and the BBC’s Steve Swann and Dominic Casciani, to the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, who back in 2017 exposed the $2.9 billion stolen from the people of Azerbaijan, and to the NCA for its part in this case, naming Mr Marandi as a person of importance.

The UK must not be a home for the world’s dirty money, but it has become so under the Tories. Mr Marandi appears to have used corporate structures—

Kit Malthouse Portrait Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
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Where’s your camper van?

Lindsay Hoyle Portrait Mr Speaker
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Order. Are you going to continue with that—yes or no? If you are, you are going to leave the Chamber. Can I have an answer? Are you going to behave?

Kit Malthouse Portrait Kit Malthouse
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I will behave.

Lindsay Hoyle Portrait Mr Speaker
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Thank you.