The Vienna prosecutor's office has launched an investigation into Philippa Strache, the wife of former Austrian Vice-Chancellor and ex-leader of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) Heinz-Christian Strache, as she is suspected of embezzlement, Presse newspaper reported, citing the prosecutor's office spokeswoman
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th October, 2019) The Vienna prosecutor's office has launched an investigation into Philippa Strache, the wife of former Austrian Vice-Chancellor and ex-leader of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) Heinz-Christian Strache, as she is suspected of embezzlement, Presse newspaper reported, citing the prosecutor's office spokeswoman.Strache is accused of using the FPO expense account for personal reasons. His former bodyguard and the ex-head of the party bureau are also under suspicion and they have already been questioned. The Strache family denies all allegations.
Strache resigned as both vice chancellor and FPO leader on May 18 after media released a 2017 video of him discussing a deal with an alleged niece of a Russian oligarch. The deal would have seen her acquire the Kronen Zeitung newspaper and gain access to several government projects in exchange for favorable media coverage for Strache ahead of the Austrian general election that year. The meeting took place at a villa on the Spanish island of Ibiza. The woman was later revealed to be a Bosnian student who was paid for the setup.
The video was made public a week before this year's European Parliament elections and labeled by Strache as a political assassination.
The so-called Ibiza 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 elections.
Kurz's People's Party (OVP) secured a landslide victory in the September 29 snap elections gaining 37.5 percent of the vote. The Social Democratic Party of Austria and FPO won 21.2 percent and 16.2 percent of the vote, respectively.
