A legislator with Angela Merkel’s party has died after a plane crashed during a flight home to Germany.
According to the DPA news agency, Karin Strange, 53, was traveling with her husband from Cuba, said Eckard Rehberg, a fellow legislator with the Christian Democratic Union Party, right at her center.
The plane made an emergency landing in Ireland but rescuers were unable to rescue Strange, Rehberg said Sunday. It was not immediately clear what caused the death or why he was on a visit to Cuba.
The Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, said on Monday that it had not entered into official parliamentary business.
Schwerin city prosecutors said they had launched an investigation to determine the cause of death, which is standard practice in such cases and would request Ireland’s help. They said they expect aut topsy to be conducted in Ireland.
Strains has been a member of the German parliament since 2009, representing the constituency of the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
He did not plan to run for re-election in Germany’s September 26 election. Earlier last year, Strains and other legislators were targeted in a raid by lawyers accused of transferring money from Azerbaijan.
