Former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) is not impressed by the incriminating statements of former Finance Minister Thomas Schmid. “He is trying to achieve star witness status by making charges against others, including me, in order to go unpunished himself,” Kurz said on Facebook. Kurz’s attorney Werner Suppan announced in the afternoon that he had sent authorities a tape recording that “refuted” Schmid’s statements.
“This tape recording represents a bombshell for the current state of the investigation and massively refutes the statements Thomas Schmid made during the interrogations to become a crown witness,” Suppan emphasized in a written statement. There was no further information about this for the time being.
In short: “Statements are no surprise”
Schmid’s statements were “no surprise,” Kurz said on Facebook. The former chancellor wants to continue to prove that the statements are incorrect. Kurz also criticizes the approach of the investigating authority. “These statements are very welcome to the WKStA, because after a year of investigation, there was absolutely nothing that would have confirmed the allegations against me.” only to be found. Schmid heavily taxed Kurz, stating, among other things, that the idea for the so-called “leg scraper tool” came from him.
“He tells everyone what they wanted to hear”
Kurz also questions Schmid’s credibility on Facebook. In reality, the statements before the Economic and Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (WKStA) are not real admissions of guilt, but merely aim “not to be punished for one’s own wrongdoing by blaming others”. In his current statements, Schmid also says he has repeatedly lied to people in his chats “and he often told everyone what he wanted to hear,” Kurz said. “Eventually, it will turn out to be the case in this case.”
“The claim that I committed a crime with an unknown pollster, whom I have never met in my life, and who has declared that I do not know me personally, is absurd for many reasons.”
Ministry money for “leg scraping tools”?
On the charge that he had access to the Treasury Department budget because he had no other funding for public opinion research, Kurz says that in 2017 he was responsible not only for a budget of more than 500 million euros, but as Secretary of State. also as chairman of the Young ÖVP hundreds of thousands of euros and as chairman of the Political Academy more than two million euros. As ÖVP chairman, he also had party funding of more than seven million euros available from mid-May 2017. “So what’s the point of embezzling a few tens of thousands of dollars a year into the treasury?”
Source: Krone
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