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Jörg Meuthen: The loss of his parliamentary immunity is considered a formality
Photo: Dwi Anoraganingrum / imago images / Future Image
The co-head of the AfD, Jörg Meuthen, loses his parliamentary immunity.
Meuthen confirmed to SPIEGEL that the legal committee of the EU Parliament voted in secret for the repeal on Wednesday evening.
Parliament still has to approve it.
As a rule, however, it follows the recommendation of the committee.
The news portal "t-online" reported about it first.
With the lifting of parliamentary immunity, the way is clear for criminal investigations against Meuthen.
The background is an affair about illegal party donations from Switzerland.
In June, the Berlin public prosecutor's office applied for the immunity to be lifted.
Meuthen expects the immunity to be lifted in two weeks
MEP Meuthen says he expects the plenary session of the EU Parliament to lift the ban in two weeks.
Meuthen told SPIEGEL that when the public prosecutor's office "finally" begins their investigation, it will quickly become apparent how "completely baseless" the allegations are.
The public prosecutor's office in Berlin sees an initial suspicion of a criminal offense in connection with the acceptance of illegal party donations against the AfD boss.
A spokesman for the authorities told SPIEGEL in June that the investigating authorities had long been legally examining "a matter that has become known to the media concerning the federal spokesman for the AfD, Jörg Meuthen".
This review process is now essentially complete.
The spokesman did not want to comment on the result at the time.
The background is the suspicion that Meuthen accepted illegal campaign aid from the Swiss PR company Goal AG in the amount of around 90,000 euros.
In response to a corresponding request, the AfD presented the Bundestag administration with an obviously forged list of donors.
Several of the alleged donors were straw people, some of whom had signed bogus donation receipts in return for payment.
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