British MP’s who have accepted all expense paid trips from the European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS) might be the target of unwanted scrutiny writes The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a not-for-profit based at City University in London.

According to an article entitled “Questions over MP’s all expense paid trip to Azerbaijan”, TEAS has been linked to an Azerbaijani politician about whom corruption concerns were raised in a US diplomatic cable leaked by Wikileaks last year.

TEAS is run by Tale and Nijat Heydarov, members of one of the country’s most powerful families and sons of Azerbaijan’s Minister for Emergency Situations, Kamaladdin Heydarov.

The cable, written in 2010 by Charge d’Affairs Don Lu, also reported concerns that Colonel-General Heydarov, father of the men who head TEAS, had obtained ‘massive wealth’ as an alleged result of illicit payments while chairman of the State Customs Committee.

In 2010, Azerbaijan was listed as ranking 134 out of 178 in the World Corruption Index by Transparency International.