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Prosecutor: No initial suspicion at Lindner
01/27/2023, 12:20 p.m
His private loans and appearances for the BBBank brought finance minister Lindner into disrepute. The Berlin public prosecutor’s office is examining the events and has now come to the conclusion: there is no need to investigate the FDP leader, and there is no initial suspicion.
After reports of allegations against Finance Minister Christian Lindner in connection with a real estate loan, the Berlin public prosecutor sees “no initial suspicion of criminal conduct”. With this finding, the anti-corruption department closed an investigation on Thursday, the public prosecutor said.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, the examination “neither gave rise to an initial suspicion of bribery of MPs (…) nor of accepting an advantage – which is in any case remote”. There was also no evidence that the loan was linked to expectations of future decisions or the honoring of previous decisions, not even with a view to “creating general goodwill”. Only if there had been an initial suspicion would the Attorney General’s Office have been entitled and obliged to investigate.
Newspapers had reported, among other things, that Lindner had held a video greeting for a private customer bank in May 2022. After that he got another loan from the BBBank. Lindner himself had rejected all allegations. His lawyer and the Ministry of Finance said greetings on anniversaries are part of a minister’s job.
In an interview with ntv.de two weeks ago, the Berlin lawyer Christian Pelz said: “If the bank grants Christian Lindner a loan because that is their business area or because they like to adorn themselves with a minister as a customer, then that’s not the case punishable.” He explained that one would have to prove “that the bank intended or has achieved some ministerial action by Lindner by granting the loan”. According to Pelz’ assessment, this hurdle will be high.