Investigations into party donations
AfD reports search of the federal office
09/28/2022, 12:27 p.m
In the morning, the Berlin public prosecutor’s office conducts a search in the office of the AfD. According to media reports, the main focus is an investigation into illegal donations from 2015 and 2018.
According to the party, there was a search at the AfD party headquarters in Berlin. “Since this morning, the Berlin public prosecutor’s office has been conducting a search of the premises of the federal office of the Alternative for Germany without having previously sent an inquiry to the AfD about the facts to be clarified,” the party said.
According to a party spokesman, it is primarily about an investigation against former party leader Jörg Meuthen in connection with earlier reports. According to reports by the WDR and NDR, the Berlin public prosecutor assumes that the AfD made false statements in the reports to the Bundestag in the years 2015 to 2018. The investigations focus on the election campaigns of the controversial “Association for the Preservation of the Rule of Law and Civil Liberties”. The right-wing weekly newspaper “Junge Freiheit” also reported that investigations into illegal party donations were underway.
AfD boss Tino Chrupalla explained that “if the public prosecutor had asked us in advance, we would have answered accordingly and made documents available”. Co-chair Alice Weidel described the investigative authority’s actions as “an extremely unusual and extremely disproportionate measure”.