German prosecutors move to strip AfD lawmaker’s immunity amid bribery probe

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BERLIN (Reuters) – Public prosecutors in Germany have moved to strip a politician from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) of his immunity as a lawmaker after initiating a probe into bribery and money laundering allegations, local media reported on Friday.

Prosecutors in the eastern city of Dresden confirmed that an investigation had been initiated against a German lawmaker on charges of bribery while he was a member of the European Parliament as well as money laundering in connection with Chinese payments.

The prosecutors did not name the suspect.

According to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, the probe is focused on Maximilian Krah, one of the new cohort of AfD politicians who entered the German parliament after February’s federal election.

Krah’s office was not immediately available for comment on the report, which was also carried by Der Spiegel magazine.

Last month German authorities arrested a former aide of Krah on suspicion of having used his position to gather information for the Chinese intelligence service and of spying on Chinese dissidents.

The man, identified as Jian G., obtained more than 500 documents to transfer to China, including some classified by the European Parliament as particularly sensitive, the federal prosecutors’ office said in a statement.

Krah has not commented publicly on the case since his former aide’s arrest. Two years ago, when a member of the European Parliament, he dismissed allegations then surfacing that his aide had been lobbying for China as slander against himself.

(Reporting by Hans-Edzard Busemann, Writing by Miranda Murray; Editing by Gareth Jones)