Austria’s former Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, was charged on Friday with making false statements to a parliamentary inquiry into alleged corruption in his first government, which collapsed in a scandal in 2019, prosecutors said, according to The Associated Press.
An indictment against Kurz, his former chief of staff, Bernhard Bonelli, and a third person was filed at the state court in Vienna, the prosecutors’ office that investigates corruption cases said in a statement. The court said Kurz will go on trial on Oct. 18.
The charges result from an investigation that was launched in 2021, when Kurz was still chancellor. It centers on his testimony to a parliamentary probe that focused on alleged corruption in the coalition he led from 2017, when his conservative People’s Party formed a government with the far-right Freedom Party, until its collapse in 2019.
Kurz pulled the plug on that government after a video surfaced showing the vice chancellor and Freedom Party leader at the time, Heinz-Christian Strache, appearing to offer favors to a purported Russian investor.
In the corruption case, Kurz is accused of giving false evidence in June 2020 regarding his role in the setting up of a holding company, OeBAG, which administers the state’s role in some companies, and the appointment of its leadership. The charge of giving false evidence can carry a penalty of up to three years in prison.
A few months after the collapse of his first government, Kurz returned to power in a new coalition with the environmentalist Greens in early 2020. He resigned as chancellor in October 2021 to defuse a political crisis triggered by prosecutors’ announcement that he was one of the targets of a second investigation into suspected bribery and breach of trust.
In the second case, Kurz and his close associates were accused of trying to secure his rise to the leadership of his party and the country with the help of manipulated polls and friendly media reports financed with public money.
While in office, Kurz expressed support for Israel and spoke out against Iran’s leaders who have called for Israel’s destruction.
Kurz revealed in 2020 that it was a phone call from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that made him act to curb the coronavirus.
When Austria was hit by a second wave of coronavirus, Kurz once again sought the help of Netanyahu, and the two held a conversation.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)