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(CN) — Former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz faces a charge of giving false testimony to a parliamentary committee probing government corruption, the latest blow to a politician once seen as a wunderkind among European conservatives.
On Friday, prosecutors with Austria’s Office for the Prosecution of Economic Criminal Matters and Corruption accused Kurz, a former top aide and a third unidentified person of providing false testimony.
Kurz now faces a trial in Vienna starting on Oct. 18. The charge carries a maximum three-year sentence.
The former chancellor denied the accusations and said in a statement on social media that he looked forward to clearing his name.
“The accusations are false and we look forward to the truth finally coming to light and the accusations proving to be unfounded in court,” he said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
In June 2020, Kurz allegedly gave false evidence to a parliamentary committee probing government corruption stemming from the release of a video shot in Ibiza, Spain, in 2017, where the leader of a far-right party in coalition with Kurz appeared to offer favors to a purported Russian investor.
In the video, Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the far-right Freedom Party and Kurz’s vice-chancellor, was seen pandering to a woman claiming to be a Russian tycoon’s niece at a boozy hotel room gathering. Strache and party colleague Johann Gudenus are heard telling the woman that she can expect lucrative construction contracts if she buys an Austrian newspaper and supports the Freedom Party. They also discuss ways of secretly funneling money to the party.
Kurz’s government collapsed following the video’s release and he broke ties with the Freedom Party. He then won a fresh round of elections in September 2019 and sought to reinvent his political career by joining forces with Austria’s Greens.
But in October 2021, Kurz resigned and said he was leaving politics after authorities raided his Austrian People’s Party headquarters in connection with corruption probes.
He was seen as a political wunderkind in 2017 when he led his center-right party to election victory. At the time, he was only 31 years old and became world’s youngest leader and Austria’s youngest-ever chancellor.
Since leaving politics, Kurz, now 36, has worked for the American investment company Thiel Capital as a global strategist. Thiel Capital was founded by German-born Peter Thiel, a billionaire venture capitalist who is politically close to former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Kurz also has had business ties with DSIRF, a large Austrian spyware provider. Several European Union countries have been accused of using illegal spyware to monitor political opponents, journalists, lawyers and activists.
Kurz remains the target in another probe looking at allegations that he was involved in bribery deals to receive favorable coverage from newspapers in exchange for law changes. He’s also accused of using taxpayer funds to manipulate opinion polls in a way to paint him as the best candidate to lead his party.
In the case announced on Friday, Austrian prosecutors allege Kurz and his former aide Bernhard Bonelli gave false evidence when asked about the appointment of Thomas Schmid, a former Kurz confidant, to head Austria’s sovereign wealth fund, the state holding company Öbag. Since then, Schmid has become a whistleblower by revealing alleged corruption inside Kurz’s government, according to news reports.
Details have emerged showing discrepancies between Kurz’s statements to the investigative committee and chat messages the former chancellor wrote, according to Austrian news reports.
Austrian media, including the Der Standard newspaper, named the third defendant as Bettina Glatz-Kremsner, a former deputy chairman of the People’s Party and the former head of Casinos Austria.
She is accused of giving false testimony to the parliamentary committee about the appointment of a board member to Casinos Austria, a company that runs casinos in Austria.
In 2019, the company came under scrutiny for naming Peter Sidlo, a Freedom Party official at the time, as its chief financial officer even though he allegedly lacked the experience and qualifications for the job. Investigations led to allegations that members of both the People’s Party and the Freedom Party conspired with gambling firm Novomatic to trade casino licenses in exchange for the appointment of Sidlo*.*
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