Former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz will be tried in October for “false testimony”, allegedly committed during a 2020 appearance before a parliamentary committee of inquiryThe Prosecutor’s Office reported this Friday.
The trial against the former leader of the conservative ÖVP will take place in the Vienna Criminal Court as of October 18 and, in principle, a verdict is expected for the 23rd of that month. The penalty, if found guilty, is up to three years in prison.
“The accusations are false and we hope that the truth will finally come to light and that the accusations will be proven unfounded in court,” Kurz said after hearing about the process.
Sebastian Kurz, former Austrian Chancellor
Along with Kurz, his close associate Bernhard Bonelli, former chief of staff at the Chancellery during his tenure, and former ÖVP vice president Bettina Glatz-Kremsner.
The process centers on Kurz’s alleged false statement about his role in the reform of the holding company state holdings ÖBAG and in the selection of the board of directors and of one of his closest collaborators, Thomas Schmid, as president of the public consortium.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor sees false testimony in Kurz’s answers during his interrogation in June 2020 in a commission of inquiry, where he minimized his role in the Schmid selection process and other senior officials.
The appearance of some written conversations that indicated that he could have been much more involved was the trigger for the Prosecutor’s investigations.
Schmid has collaborated with the Justice as a witness for the prosecution against Kurz and has given access to the content of his conversations by messaging when he was in high office.
Kurz, who is 36 years old, resigned as head of government in October 2021 after it became known that the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor he was being investigated for embezzlement and embezzlement for paying in 2016 with public funds, favorable surveys in the media.
