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German Bundestag (symbol picture)
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An unusually large number of members of the Bundestag have had their immunity withdrawn during the current legislative period.
The immunity of parliamentarians has been lifted 22 times by the plenary, reports the »Süddeutsche Zeitung«.
18 MPs were affected by this.
In the last legislative period there were only four cases, in the penultimate nine.
According to the report, the Bundestag administration cannot explain why this development is.
A spokesman for parliament told the newspaper: "The Bundestag administration has no information on why the number of proceedings has increased in this electoral term." The Bundestag will not be informed about the outcome of the preliminary investigation.
Therefore, he could not say anything about the number of convictions.
According to research by the online portal Abestagwatch.de among the parliamentarians concerned, the responsible public prosecutor's offices and courts, the results of which are available to the newspaper, there has so far been one conviction.
The AfD MP Sebastian Munzenmaier was sentenced to a fine for aiding and abetting dangerous bodily harm.
The pandemic is delaying some proceedings
Proceedings are still pending against nine MPs.
They would not only include the proceedings against Georg Nüßlein (previously CSU) and Axel Fischer (CDU), but also against the SPD member of the Bundestag, Marcus Held.
The social democrat was accused, among other things, of embezzlement and corruption.
Because of the pandemic, the process has not yet started.
Nüßlein was criticized for business with corona protective masks and left the CSU at the beginning of March.
He is said to have received six-figure commissions for brokering business with corona protective masks.
Previously, party colleague Nikolas Löbel had resigned his parliamentary mandate with immediate effect and had left the CDU.
He had brokered purchase contracts for protective masks through his company and received commissions of around 250,000 euros for them.
jok / AFP
