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The verdict against the former Finance Minister and FPÖ Grasser politician sends a signal. It is primarily directed against a system that is widespread but not called corruption.
This ruling in Austria has it all: Former Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser was sentenced to eight years in prison for corruption, breach of trust, acceptance of gifts and falsification of evidence. Even if Grasser and his specialists have announced their appointment, what many have always suspected will become official. The right-wing FPÖ troops, the so-called Buberlpartie under Jörg Haider, viewed the state as a convenience store.
Grasser was once a welcome guest on German talk shows as a key figure in the first government involving the FPÖ, against which the other EU states imposed sanctions in 2000. He would later even inherit Wolfgang Schüssel in the ÖVP. This court case has made public the fraud practices of politicians. To get advice on the privatization of federal apartments, Grasser and his friends raised millions, which were smuggled overseas through disguised accounts. In court, the former minister tried to deceive everyone, declaring that the half a million euros in a suitcase that he had brought to Liechtenstein was his mother-in-law’s money.
The punishment was a system that is very widespread in Austria, but that is not called corruption there, but friendly economy. For the first time, such a high prison sentence was imposed on a politician for a “plot to enrich himself illegally at the expense of the republic.” This ruling sends a signal and shows that the rule of law works in Austria.
