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Heinz Christian Strache, once the FPÖ party leader, stumbled over the Ibiza affair
Photo: Hans Punz / APA / DPA
For over a year, the alleged mastermind of the Ibiza video was wanted by European arrest warrant.
Now the police have arrested him in Berlin.
The Vienna Public Prosecutor and the Berlin police confirmed the arrest on Thursday.
First the Austrian newspaper Die Presse reported on it.
In the video, which was recorded in 2017 in a villa on the Spanish island of Ibiza, the later Austrian Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache from the right-wing FPÖ had spoken to an alleged Russian oligarch about illegal party donations and large-scale orders, among other things, and appeared prone to corruption.
Strache has always denied all allegations.
The publication of excerpts from the video by SPIEGEL and »Süddeutsche Zeitung« in May 2019 led to Strache's resignation from the ÖVP-FPÖ government of Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and later to new elections.
The private detective, who appears in the video as a companion of the decoy and is said to have threaded the trap and bugged the house, went into hiding after the video became known.
According to the »Presse«, in addition to the illegal production of sound and film recordings, he is also charged with trafficking in cocaine.
According to the Vienna public prosecutor's office, the German authorities now have to decide whether to initiate surrender proceedings.
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