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Jorg Meuthen
Photo: M. Popow / imago images/Metodi Popow
The EU Parliament has withdrawn the parliamentary immunity of the non-attached MEP and former AfD chairman Jörg Meuthen at the request of the Berlin judiciary.
MEPs voted in favour, it was announced in Strasbourg on Tuesday.
As a result, there is nothing formally standing in the way of criminal investigations against Meuthen.
The Berlin public prosecutor's office had applied for Meuthen's immunity to be lifted "in order to initiate criminal proceedings," it said.
The background is the AfD donation affair, in which a Swiss PR company supported Meuthen in the 2016 state election campaign in Baden-Württemberg (read more here).
As the then federal spokesman for the AfD, Meuthen is said to have "allegedly" not clearly stated the services of the PR company of around 90,000 euros in the annual report for 2016 to the Bundestag, according to the report by the EU parliament.
At the time, the Bundestag considered this to be a forbidden acceptance of anonymous donations and imposed a fine of 269,400 euros on the AfD.
According to the EU Parliament, Meuthen is also suspected of having "provided incorrect or incomplete information" in statements for the years 2017 and 2018.
Jörg Meuthen has been a member of the European Parliament since November 2017 and has therefore previously been protected from investigations by the Berlin public prosecutor's office.
He left the AfD at the end of January.
Meuthen was the party's co-chairman for more than six years.
Parts of the AfD are "not based on the free-democratic basic order," he said.
“I clearly see totalitarian echoes there.” The AfD has developed something cult-like, especially in corona policy.
At best, he sees a future for the AfD as an East German regional party.
as/AFP/dpa