Chancellor of Austria Sebastian Kurtz commented on the investigation that the prosecutor’s office of the country leads to him and nine people in the case of corruption. This is reported by TASS.
As the Chancellor stated on the air of the ORF 2 TV channel, he does not understand why he always wants to make the guilty when somewhere there is something wrongful. Kurtz rejected suspicion of concluding bribery and affirmatively answered the question whether he will continue to take his post with accusations against him.
Chancellor added that all investigations against it are conducted without the presence of concrete evidence, reminded the presumption of innocence and stressed that the decision on guilt may not bear the public, and the court
On October 6, in the office of the Austrian People’s Party headquarters (ANP), which is headed by Kurtz, there were searches due to suspicion of bribing the media. Investigators watched documentation in the cabinets of the official representative of Johannes Freshmanna Chancellor, authorized to work with the media Herald Fleiscmann and the adviser Stefan Steiner. They are accused of bribing Österreich newspaper for publications of materials and surveys with positive reviews about the party.
At the same time, in relation to Kurta and his associates, an investigation is also investigated on charges of awareness of corruption and fraud. Later, the Austrian Prosecutor’s Office for the Investigation of Economic and Corruption Crimes confirmed that he was investigating against the Chancellor of the Republic of Sebastian Kurtz and more nine persons in the case of corruption.
According to the investigation, in the period from 2016 to 2018, the Ministry of Finance used funds from the budget “to finance exclusively party-politically motivated, sometimes manipulated surveys conducted by the Company to study public opinion in the interests of the political party and its supreme official.” The results of these polls were published in the Austrian daily newspaper and were not labeled as advertisements.