German justice announced on Wednesday April 24 that it had opened two preliminary investigations, for suspicion of Russian and Chinese financing, against Maximilian Krah, head of the list of the German far right (AfD) in the European elections.
These investigations must “check if there is a suspicion of corruption of the MP”, specified the Dresden public prosecutor’s office at the head of these investigations. The MEP is already at the center of turmoil following the arrest of one of his assistants in the European Parliament, Jian G., suspected of being a Chinese agent. Mr Krah has since fired him.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, however, ruled on Wednesday these accusations against the assistant “very, very worrying”. For the moment, the AfD, an anti-migrant and anti-euro movement, has decided to keep Mr. Krah as head of the list for the European election in June.
Last week, German media revealed that Maximilian Krah had been questioned, during a trip to the United States, by the FBI last December about payments received from a pro-Kremlin activist.
A debate in the Bundestag on Thursday
The elected official and his number two on the European list, Petr Bystron, have also already been cited for weeks in the context of the affair of the alleged Russian propaganda network by the Voice of Europe site, sanctioned at the end of March by the government Czech. Mr. Krah admitted in early April to having appeared twice on this website, but not having “of course got money for that”.
Concerning Mr. Krah’s former parliamentary assistant, Jian G., he is accused of having spied on Chinese opponents in Germany and of having shared information on the European Parliament with a Chinese intelligence service, the German federal prosecutor’s office in a press release.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser called the affair a“extremely serious”. If it is confirmed, “this would be an attack on European democracy”, she said in a press release. MPs from Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre-left coalition announced a debate in the Bundestag on Thursday on the theme: “threat to our democracy – Russia, China and the role of the AfD”.