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The new head of the Chancellery, Wolfgang Schmidt
Photo: Michael Kappeler / dpa
The Berlin public prosecutor's office has temporarily suspended its investigations against the new head of the Chancellery, Wolfgang Schmidt (SPD).
This is reported by the »Tagesspiegel«.
The confidante of the new Chancellor Olaf Scholz was to be charged with "a prohibited communication about court hearings".
Schmidt immediately paid the required amount of 5,000 euros.
Half of the amount will now be transferred to two charitable organizations.
The SPD politician was previously State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Finance.
After the controversial searches by the Osnabrück public prosecutor's office in the ministry shortly before the federal election, he published excerpts from the court ruling on his Twitter account.
The prosecutors in Osnabrück then initiated proceedings under Section 353d of the Criminal Code, which prohibits the publication of official documents from ongoing criminal proceedings.
The case was handed over to the Berlin judiciary, which also saw an initial suspicion.
In investigations against those in charge of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), a money laundering special unit of the customs, the Osnabrück public prosecutor had the Federal Ministry of Finance and Justice searched.
Documents were also confiscated, as the public prosecutor announced.
Since last year, the public prosecutors have been investigating a suspicion of fraudulent conduct in office by the FIU.
After the investigation against him, Schmidt was confident that the "allegations can be cleared up quickly."
Schmidt wrote on Twitter that it was being investigated against employees of the ministry.
The public should "form its own picture of the facts."
Apparently Schmidt was not able to convince the judiciary with this argument, it says in the »Tagesspiegel«.
In the past few days, his lawyer is said to have tried to end the proceedings as quickly as possible with a view to the government post.
It is not known whether Schmidt will stick to the view he expressed at the time.
