The leader of the far-right Freedom Party in Austria (FPÖ) and former interior minister Herbert Kickl is being investigated for infidelity, the prosecutor’s office for Economic Affairs and Corruption has announced. Other former government officials, as well as a media entrepreneur, are also at the center of the investigation.

According to the prosecution, among those audited are former Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache and former Transport Minister Norbert Hofer, also from the FPÖ, who allegedly used state funds for paid listings in Wolfgang Fellner’s tabloid newspaper in exchange for favorable reporting. for their co-government with the centre-right People’s Party (ÖVP), of the then chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

The offenses are believed to have taken place between January 2018 and May 2019.

In his statements to the Austrian News Agency (ARA), a representative of the FPÖ claimed that the “deep state” has turned against his party.

He also stated that there is no concern, on the contrary, he expressed the belief that “the matter will be closed 100%”, judging that the sole aim of the prosecution is to damage his party, a few months before the autumn parliamentary elections.

In 2019, Heinz-Christian Strache was at the center of so-called “Ibitha-gate”, when a video was leaked showing him before the 2017 elections at a country house in Ibitha promising government contracts to a woman who was supposed to be the niece of a Russian oligarch and would help him financially in the election campaign.

The revelation had a direct consequence in the dissolution of the governing coalition.