The Innsbruck public prosecutor’s office will not initiate summary proceedings in the case of two young Ukrainians who were taken from a Tyrolean accommodation to their mothers in Moscow by a Tyrolean state official. As spokesperson Hansjörg Mayr explained, the trip was “amicable” and at the “wish of the mothers and young people”. The Ministry of Justice also saw it that way after an audit.
According to the public prosecutor, the person concerned acted in his capacity as secretary-general of the European Ombudsman Institute (EOI) and not as a state official. He had “prepared and announced the trip to Moscow on January 8, 2023 for weeks”. “The extent to which relevant authorities have been specifically and timely informed does not play a role in the criminal assessment,” it says. At the beginning of February, the prosecutor’s office sent a project report to the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry now agrees with the Innsbruck colleagues.
employee suspended
The employee has been suspended by the state of Tyrol. The authority said he was on vacation and had not used any of the country’s financial resources for the trip. A disciplinary committee had to decide on the man’s legal situation.
At the beginning of this year, at the request of his Russian ombudsman colleague, the official drove to the Tyrolean facility and picked up the young people there. After a train journey to Vienna, they flew together to Moscow, where the youngsters had been handed over to their mothers. At the beginning of the war, the young people were evacuated from eastern Ukraine and taken to Tyrol.
diplomatic tensions
The incident had also sparked diplomatic tensions between Austria and Ukraine. Ukrainian ambassador Vasyl Khymynets described the events as “serious” and urged clarification. In addition, LandTirol distanced itself from the EOI, whose general secretariat was located in Innsbruck. State President Sonja Ledl-Rossmann (ÖVP) stated that they now wanted to withdraw from the committee and that the Tyrolean State Ombudsman would continue to network in the EU’s “European Network of Ombudsmen”.
Source: Krone
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