Former Austrian far-right leader Heinz-Christian Strache, who fell out of favor after a corruption scandal, was acquitted by the Vienna Criminal Court on Tuesday in a new trial for lack of evidence.
The 53-year-old defendant, prosecuted for favoritism in exchange for donations to his party, was "
found not guilty
", told AFP Christina Salzborn, the vice-president of the court.
Judgment reversed by the Court of Appeal
Heinz-Christian Strache was sentenced in August 2021 to a 15-month suspended prison sentence, but the judgment was overturned a year later by the Court of Appeal, elements exculpating him not having been taken into account.
During this second trial, the judge considered that the prosecutors had not provided enough evidence to qualify the offense, according to the reasons for the decision reported by the APA agency.
According to the prosecution, Heinz-Christian Strache would have intervened to change the law so that a private clinic is attached to social security.
The legislation will eventually be changed once the far right comes to power, allowing the establishment to receive public funds.
Read alsoAustria: Strache, a far-right vice-chancellor under surveillance
In return, the boss of this clinic, Walter Grubmüller, was accused of having made two donations to the powerful Freedom Party (FPÖ), for a total amount of 12,000 euros.
He had for his part received a 12-month suspended prison sentence and was also acquitted on Tuesday.
Then vice-chancellor, Heinz-Christian Strache had seen his fate change in May 2019: a video shot two years earlier on the Spanish island of Ibiza then leaked to the press.
Filmed with a hidden camera, we see him offering public contracts to a woman posing as the niece of a Russian oligarch, in exchange for financial support.
The sequence has the effect of an explosion, causing the breakup of the coalition uniting the FPÖ and the conservatives of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and early elections lost by the far right.
Acquitted from another corruption trial
On the legal front, the episode led to the launch of all-out investigations against several senior officials, including Heinz-Christian Strache.
At the end of July, he was also acquitted in another corruption trial.
These corruption cases have for a time lowered the far right, historically strong in Austria, in the polls.
But the FPÖ, which currently sits in the opposition, has once again become the country's leading political party, approaching 30% of voting intentions.