Since 09:30 Sophie Karmasin (56) has been visibly tense and with a petrified face on the quay in Landl, Vienna. The tension is rising. Prosecutors from the State Department for Economic Affairs and Corruption and Karmasin’s attorney, Norbert Wess, mastered their closing arguments on the fourth day of the trial. Now it’s up to the grand jury.
More light than last week, but this time an ice-cold atmosphere in the large courtroom of the Vienna court. On the one hand because the air conditioning is at the highest level. But mainly because the atmosphere between the prosecutor’s office and the defense lawyers is at its lowest point. Closing arguments began shortly before 2 p.m.
“Evidence paints a clear picture”
According to the indictment, former federal minister Sophie Karmasin received paychecks illegally after she left politics. “The evidence paints a clear picture and leaves no room for doubt. Karmasin knew she was not allowed to earn anything during the continued payment. E-mails she received from the State Chancellery prove this,” says senior prosecutor Gregor Adamovic of the WKStA.
“Okay, then I don’t earn anything,” the defendant wrote back at the time. Although according to the WKStA she was active again for a long time. False invoices would have concealed this. The second allegation concerns illegal price fixing in connection with studies for the Ministry of Sport.
27,000 euros overpaid
“I am deeply convinced that Dr. Karmasin cannot be criminally charged,” her lawyer Norbert Wess begins his closing argument. In his view, active conversion was “not just timely, but voluntary, and not just complete, but overly complete.” Because Karmasin even paid back 27,000 euros too much, which the Republic had withheld as income tax. Also with regard to the illegal price fixing, Wess does not see the facts as fulfilled: “Everyone in the ministry was involved. There was no competition at all, there was no award procedure.”
Verdict pronounced after deliberation of the lay judges
The testimony of CASAG key witness Sabine Beinschab caused a sensation during the four-day trial. The pollster heavily blamed her former boss Karmasin, whom she described as her “great role model”. After the deliberations of the lay judges, the verdict is announced. Incidentally, the lay judges did not ask questions on any of the days of the session.
Source: Krone
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