Jaakko Laakso Sanomatalo Mediatori 2017 06

Jaakko Tapani Laakso (born 20 May 1948 in

Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...

) is a

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

leftwing politician and member of Parliament between 1991 and 2011, representing Left Alliance. He is a former member of the

Communist Party of Finland The Communist Party of Finland ( fi, Suomen Kommunistinen Puolue, SKP; sv, Finlands Kommunistiska Parti) was a communist political party in Finland. The SKP was a section of Comintern and illegal in Finland until 1944. The SKP was banned by ...

. Laakso graduated from

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

in 1973 and has worked for the communist newspaper Tiedonantaja. His son, Tapio, is former chairman of the

Federation of Green Youth and Students The Federation of Green Youth and Students (''Vihreiden nuorten ja opiskelijoiden liitto ry'' (ViNO) in Finnish or ''De gröna unga och studerandenas förbund'' in Swedish) is a political youth organization in Finland. It is the youth wing of the ...

Suvi-Anne Siimes Sini Maaria Suvi-Anne Siimes (born 1 June 1963, in Helsinki) is a former chair of the Finnish Left Alliance. She quit the party in 2006 because she did not want to support the party's former taistoists (orthodox pro-Soviet communists). Before h ...

, former chair of Laakso's political party, stated in her book ''Politiikan julkisivu'' (2007) that Laakso advances Russian interests. In 2014,

Mitrokhin Archive The "Mitrokhin Archive" is a collection of handwritten notes which were secretly made by the KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin during the thirty years in which he served as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the First Chief Direc ...

documents made public by the

Churchill Archives Centre The Churchill Archives Centre (CAC) at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge is one of the largest repositories in the United Kingdom for the preservation and study of modern personal papers. It is best known for housing the papers of ...

indicated that Laakso had been recruited to the

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

in 1973 and used the codename "Jan". In a report released by an investigatory body of the

Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...

focusing of corruption, Laakso was proven to have worked as a lobbyist for the

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

i government mitigating

human rights violations Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hum ...

in the country. As a result, Laakso was found to have committed a minor breach of the

PACE Pace or paces may refer to: Business *Pace (transit), a bus operator in the suburbs of Chicago, US * Pace Airlines, an American charter airline *Pace Foods, a maker of a popular brand of salsa sold in North America, owned by Campbell Soup Compan ...

's ethical rules and on 29 June 2018 he received a lifetime ban to the premises of Council of Europe and Parliamentary Assembly.

Sources

External links

Finnish Parliament:Jaakko Laakso
1948 births Living people Politicians from Turku Communist Party of Finland politicians Finnish People's Democratic League politicians Democratic Alternative (Finland) politicians Left Alliance (Finland) politicians Members of the Parliament of Finland (1991–95) Members of the Parliament of Finland (1995–99) Members of the Parliament of Finland (1999–2003) Members of the Parliament of Finland (2003–07) Members of the Parliament of Finland (2007–11) University of Helsinki alumni {{Finland-politician-stub