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CRIME

CDU slush-fund scandal figure Schreiber denies charges

Karlheinz Schreiber, the German-Canadian weapons lobbyist and key figure in a political slush-fund scandal, was formally charged on Tuesday with tax evasion, bribery and fraud.

Published: 4 August 2009 14:50 CEST
CDU slush-fund scandal figure Schreiber denies charges
A file photo of Karlheinz Schreiber in Canada. Photo: DPA

His lawyer denied he was guilty of any offence.

The 75-year-old arrived in Munich yesterday morning after finally losing a 10-year-battle against extradition from Canada. He is wanted in connection with a political party donations scandal with the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) during the Helmut Kohl era.

Judge Rudolf Weigell also deemed Schreiber a flight risk due to his dual citizenship and ample means and ordered that he stay in jail until trial, court spokesman Karl-Heinz Haeusler told reporters from outside the Augsburg court house. The media was not allowed in the courtroom during the brief hearing.

The charges are related to an allegation that Schreiber gave former CDU treasurer Walther Leisler Kiep a briefcase with €511,000 (1 million German Marks) in a parking lot in Switzerland in 1991, which prosecutors claim then flowed into party coffers.

The resulting investigation forced former Chancellor Helmut Kohl to relinquish his post as honorary chairman of the CDU in 1999.

No trial date has been set yet.

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CRIME

Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

A 17-year-old has turned himself in to police in Germany after an attack on a lawmaker that the country's leaders decried as a threat to democracy.

Published: 5 May 2024 12:52 CEST
Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

The teenager reported to police in the eastern city of Dresden early Sunday morning and said he was “the perpetrator who had knocked down the SPD politician”, police said in a statement.

Matthias Ecke, 41, European parliament lawmaker for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), was set upon by four attackers as he put up EU election posters in Dresden on Friday night, according to police.

Ecke was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said.

Scholz on Saturday condemned the attack as a threat to democracy.

“We must never accept such acts of violence,” he said.

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s European election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police said a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had been “punched” and “kicked” earlier in the evening on the same Dresden street.

Last week two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and another was surrounded by dozens of demonstrators in her car in the east of the country.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

A group of activists against the far right has called for demonstrations against the attack on Ecke in Dresden and Berlin on Sunday, Der Spiegel magazine said.

According to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is planning to call a special conference with Germany’s regional interior ministers next week to address violence against politicians.

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