The Prosecutor's Office in Vienna has opened an investigation into the scandalous video that led to the resignation of Austrian Vice-Chancellor and leader of Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) Heinz-Christian Strache, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office said on Monday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th May, 2019) The Prosecutor's Office in Vienna has opened an investigation into the scandalous video that led to the resignation of Austrian Vice-Chancellor and leader of Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) Heinz-Christian Strache, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office said on Monday.
Strache resigned from both posts on May 18 after media released a 2017 video of him allegedly making a deal with a niece of a Russian oligarch reportedly living in Latvia. The deal involved giving the woman the Kronen Zeitung newspaper and access to several government projects in exchange for favorable media coverage for the politician ahead of the Austrian general election that year. The meeting allegedly took place at a villa on the Spanish island of Ibiza.
"As for the video from Ibiza, the investigation has already started and is going in several directions." Nina Bussek said, without specifying any other details, as quoted by the OE24 tv channel.
On May 22, former FPO Deputy Chairman Johann Gudenus suggested that a Viennese lawyer and German mediator could be behind the video.
The video was made public a week before the elections to the European Parliament, which began last Thursday and ended on Sunday. Strache has labeled the situation a political assassination.
The scandal led to major cabinet reshuffles and forced Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz to withdraw his party from its coalition with the FPO and call snap parliamentary elections.
