Former Austrian Finance minister to serve eight years in prison for corruption scandal
Karl-Heinz Grasser
The former finance minister of Austria, Karl-Heinz Grasser, has been sentenced to eight years of jail time after he was proven guilty on corruption charges.
Grasser was hailed for becoming the youngestfinance minister of the country in the year 2000. However, his fame soon turned away when he was charged on counts of embezzlement, bribery and falsification of evidence to sell thousands of publicly owned apartments.
He has been accused of falsifying information and passing on confidential information to a third party, along with another middleman. This helped the third party — identified as the rival party — to come up with a higher winning bid.
An association then, three years later, bought the apartments for€961 million, which were valued at double the amount. One per cent of this purchase, €9.6 million, was also passed on toex-Freedom Party of Austria General Secretary Walter Meischberger and lobbyist Peter Hochegger. This money was then divided into three different accounts of Lichtenstein to cover the tracks. The two, along with Grasser, have been given prison sentences.
"Those who do business honestly do not need any accounts in Lichtenstein," Judge Marion Hohenecker said.
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Accusing Grasser of providing the sensitive information to the winning bidder, she added the only way the bidders won was "through bribery and was only possible because of the intentional abuse of authority" by the former finance minister.
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The Judge has issued an eight-year-long prison sentence to Grasser on the basis of hundreds of witness statements and several phone tappings.
Grasser and his lawyers have dismissed all the allegations describing them as "blatant misjudgement". His lawyers will now be challenging the decision.