Activists outraged at Austria trial of corruption 'informer'
A private detective who helped orchestrate a scandal that
brought down the Austrian government went on trial on Wednesday, in a drug
trafficking case activists say is being used to silence him.
The coalition government collapsed when a secretly filmed
video emerged in 2019 showing vice-chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache appearing
to offer public contracts to a woman posing as the niece of a Russian oligarch
in exchange for help with his far-right party's campaign.
Private investigator Julian Hessenthaler told a
parliamentary inquiry earlier this year he conceived the idea of the video,
filmed on the Spanish island of Ibiza in 2017.
Hessenthaler was arrested in December last year in Berlin
and extradited to Austria on charges of selling more than a kilogramme (2.2
pounds) of cocaine in 2017 and 2018.
The 40-year-old, who went on trial in Sankt Poelten west of
Vienna on Wednesday, denies the accusation, which carries a maximum sentence of
15 years in jail.
His lawyer Oliver Scherbaum has called the charges
"trumped up accusations to eliminate those who denounce corruption in
politics".
Activists said prosecutors had adopted an "excessive
manner in order to silence Julian Hessenthaler".
"Apparently, he is made an example of in order to deter
potential future informers from expressing their opinion freely," Thomas
Lohninger of Austrian group epicenter.works said in a statement released by 15
NGOs, including Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders.
The Ibiza vide caused a huge scandal when it was released in
May 2019.
Strache's decision to quit torpedoed the alliance between
his far-right Freedom Party and the conservatives of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
Strache was hit with a 15-month suspended prison sentence
for corruption last month in one of the inquiries stemming from the
"Ibizagate" scandal. He is appealing the verdict.
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