VIENNA (AP) — A court in Vienna on Monday acquitted former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz of making false statements to a parliamentary inquiry into alleged corruption in his government, reversing a verdict from last year in which Kurz was given a suspended prison sentence.
Judges at Vienna’s upper state court threw out Kurz’s conviction after a short appeal hearing, the Austria Press Agency reported.
The case centered on Kurz’s testimony to an inquiry that focused on the coalition he led from 2017, when his conservative Austrian People’s Party formed a coalition with the far-right Freedom Party, until its collapse in 2019.
Prosecutors accused the 38-year-old of having given false evidence in June 2020 regarding his role in the setting up of a holding company, OeBAG, which administers the state’s role in some companies, and the appointment of former close confidant Thomas Schmid to its leadership.
In February 2024, Kurz was found guilty of making false statements about the appointment of the company’s supervisory board, though not about that of Schmid. He was given an eight-month suspended sentence.
That verdict followed a four-month trial. It was the first time in more than 30 years that a former Austrian chancellor had stood trial.
“What came out is what I have always said — namely, that I did not tell untruths to the parliamentary inquiry,” Kurz said in a brief statement to reporters outside the courtroom after Monday’s decision.
“I now have a long time in (legal) proceedings behind me, and to be honest I’d like to set out my position in detail, but I ask for your understanding that I’m going home to family and my two children first,” Kurz added.
Judges on Monday upheld the conviction of Kurz’s former chief of staff, Bernhard Bonelli, for making a false statement to the parliamentary inquiry about his own involvement and that of Kurz in the selection of OeBAG supervisory board members. He was given a six-month suspended sentence last year. Kurz said he deeply regrets the decision on Bonelli.
Once a rising star among conservatives in Europe, Kurz resigned in 2021 after a separate corruption probe opened and has since left politics. His People’s Party still leads the government under current Chancellor Christian Stocker, although it finished second in an election in September.
Kurz rose to power with an anti-immigration platform and was only 31 when he became the leader of the People’s Party and then chancellor in 2017.
He pulled the plug on his first government after a video surfaced that showed the vice chancellor and Freedom Party leader at the time, Heinz-Christian Strache, appearing to offer favors to a purported Russian investor.
Kurz returned to power in a new coalition with the environmentalist Greens in early 2020, but resigned in October 2021. The Greens had demanded his replacement after prosecutors announced that he was a target of a second investigation into suspected bribery and breach of trust. Kurz also denied any wrongdoing in that case.
There has been periodic speculation about the possibility of Kurz making a political comeback.
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Moulson reported from Berlin.
