According to a media report, Finance Minister Christian Lindner is at risk of losing his parliamentary immunity. The background is a video speech by the FDP politician for a bank, which in turn finances his house purchase.
As the “Tagesspiegel” reports, the public prosecutor’s office is examining the lifting of the parliamentary immunity of FDP politician and Finance Minister Christian Lindner. It’s about a spicy video from May 2022, in which Lindner participated. In the video, a minister’s greeting for a private bank in Karlsruhe, BBBank, Lindner concealed the fact that he himself financed his house through that bank.
The corruption department of the Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office is currently examining the lifting of Lindner’s immunity. That would be necessary in order to be able to formally investigate. This is also “usual in such cases and without making a statement about the existence of an initial suspicion,” a spokesman told the “Tagesspiegel”. Lindner is threatened with criminal proceedings for taking advantage.
At the request of the “Tagesspiegel”, however, Lindner denied that there was a connection between his house loan and the minister’s greeting. There was also no obligation to disclose the private business relationship with the bank in the Ministry.
Lindner’s lawyer Christian Schertz announced on Sunday: “Mr. Lindner started private real estate financing long before he took over his ministry. All conditions were always customary in the market. Granting a short greeting on anniversaries such as the centenary of a bank is part of the normal conduct of a minister’s office.”
Lindner therefore sees “today’s reporting with composure”, says Schertz.
The “Spiegel” had already reported on another video speech by Lindner for the BBBank last October. This has been on the site since September 2018. Around two years later, in January 2021, Lindner bought a two-family house in Berlin, financed by BBBank. According to “Spiegel”, he registered a land charge of 2.35 million euros in favor of the private bank. It is unclear how much equity Lindner had to bring in to purchase the property.
Explosive: A year and a half later, the property was charged again with a further 450,000 euros. The most recent Lindner video for BBBank, the one from May 2022, was created just a few weeks earlier. It is unclear whether the finance minister intended the new land charge when the video was produced.
