Greens criticized:
“Zadic jeopardizes the fight against corruption”
Just four weeks before the National Council elections, the pink security spokesperson takes aim at the Green Justice Minister. The public prosecutor's office apparently lacks a focus on relevant cases. Meanwhile, emails were seized at the Federal Administrative Court.
NEOS MP Stephanie Krisper accuses head of department Alma Zadić of not providing sufficient support to the Economic and Corruption Prosecution Office (WKStA). While the number of open major cases has increased to 74, the WKStA's staffing situation has stagnated at 44 full-time positions.
"Zadić is letting the WKStA down and jeopardizing the fight against corruption," says Krisper and complains that the minister is doing nothing "apart from paying lip service".
The "Falter" recently harshly criticized the high staff turnover at the WKStA under the leadership of Ilse Maria Vrabl-Sanda: Behind the scenes, the "Ibiza team", which has "meticulously familiarized itself with tens of thousands of pages of files since 2019", was disintegrating. Due to a lack of prospects at the WKStA, the longstanding senior public prosecutor Gregor Adamovic is now "working as a judge in St. Pölten, dealing with inn scuffles instead of Sebastian Kurz." It also said: "The authority is driving against the wall - without Alma Zadić taking the wheel from the head of the authority, Ilse Maria Vrabl-Sanda."
Too few resources for Benko and Co.
In fact, the lack of leadership in the Ministry of Justice and the WKStA, which is bound by instructions, goes even deeper: Adamovic's time as Chief Public Prosecutor was also characterized by house searches and confiscations. A lot of tax money, little result. In the biggest criminal case in the Republic, the Benko/Signa bankruptcy, there was less commitment at the WKStA.
Senior public prosecutors hardly freed up
Apparently, it is not possible to free up some senior public prosecutors for particularly relevant white-collar crime cases, as "Krone" research shows. For example, the group leader and a senior public prosecutor in charge of the multi-billion Signa bankruptcy involving financial juggler René Benko also have to deal with the multi-million euro disaster surrounding the complex Commerzialbank Mattersburg case.
In the interests of the taxpayers, it would be urgently necessary to shed light on the darkest corners of the opaque Signa Group, as the prudent head of the Financial Procurator's Office, Wolfgang Peschorn, the lawyer of the Republic, has been insisting for months.
As minister, Alma Zadić wanted to bring more transparency to appointments. However, it was only in July that she also received a scolding from the EU Commission, which criticized shortcomings in appointments in the Austrian judiciary in its annual rule of law report. The head of the Federal Administrative Court (BVwG), which remained vacant from 2022 to 2024, was cited as a specific example. In the end, the number three of the proposal was installed.
BVwG: emails were secured
With more than 200 judges, the BVwG is Austria's largest court. And apparently the minister's biggest construction site. Recent documents from the public prosecutor's office in Innsbruck, which are available to the "Krone", show that the former president, the long-standing vice president and other executives are suspected of having manipulated the allocation of responsibilities. The accused deny the serious allegations and the presumption of innocence applies.
The public prosecutor's office recently ordered the Federal Computing Center to seize emails from the accused. The investigation concerns "suspicion of the crime of abuse of official authority", as the order states.
The investigations did not stop Alma Zadić from bidding farewell to the former president at a ceremony in April 2024: The Minister of Justice took the opportunity to present him with the Grand Decoration of Honor in Silver with Star for Services to the Republic of Austria "in recognition of his achievements".
This article has been automatically translated,
read the original article here.
Kommentare
Willkommen in unserer Community! Eingehende Beiträge werden geprüft und anschließend veröffentlicht. Bitte achten Sie auf Einhaltung unserer Netiquette und AGB. Für ausführliche Diskussionen steht Ihnen ebenso das krone.at-Forum zur Verfügung. Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.
User-Beiträge geben nicht notwendigerweise die Meinung des Betreibers/der Redaktion bzw. von Krone Multimedia (KMM) wieder. In diesem Sinne distanziert sich die Redaktion/der Betreiber von den Inhalten in diesem Diskussionsforum. KMM behält sich insbesondere vor, gegen geltendes Recht verstoßende, den guten Sitten oder der Netiquette widersprechende bzw. dem Ansehen von KMM zuwiderlaufende Beiträge zu löschen, diesbezüglichen Schadenersatz gegenüber dem betreffenden User geltend zu machen, die Nutzer-Daten zu Zwecken der Rechtsverfolgung zu verwenden und strafrechtlich relevante Beiträge zur Anzeige zu bringen (siehe auch AGB). Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.