display
Schwerin (dpa / mv) - Two former executives of the Müritz district association of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO) have to answer before the Schwerin regional court from Thursday.
The public prosecutor's office accuses the AWO managing director Peter Olijnyk of many years and the former district association chairman Götz-Peter Lohmann of particularly serious infidelity or aiding and abetting.
The case was already the occasion for a parliamentary investigative committee of the state parliament, which dealt with the promotion of the welfare associations as a whole, and also for a civil process between the AWO and Olijnyk, which the latter lost before the higher regional court (OLG).
The now 72-year-old Olijnyk and the 78-year-old former SPD member of the Bundestag Lohmann are alleged to have obtained lucrative income for each other between 2005 and 2016, bypassing the AWO bodies at the expense of the AWO.
Accordingly, agreements signed by Lohmann are said to have promised district manager Olijnyk inappropriately high remuneration and pension entitlements in the amount of 1.23 million euros.
On the other hand, Olijnyk is said to have signed an employment contract for Lohmann at an AWO company, without Lohmann later also providing services for the total of 675,000 euros paid.
Although Lohmann is charged with aiding and abetting, he could also be convicted as an accomplice, depending on the course of the process, said a court spokesman.
After the amount of the salary became known, Olijnyk was dismissed without notice in 2016.
He resisted this in court, albeit unsuccessfully.
The Higher Regional Court (OLG) Rostock decided in 2019 that he had to repay around 390,000 euros in excessive salaries, royalties and company pension shares to the AWO (Az 1U 36/16).
The judges decided that the amendments to the contract that increased Olijnyk's salary were invalid.
In addition to Lohmann, another AWO board member should have signed, according to the OLG.
display
In 2017, due to the "AWO Müritz" case, among other things, the AfD applied to the state parliament to set up a parliamentary committee of inquiry (PUA) to examine the promotion and control of the welfare organizations.
At the end of the investigation, the chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, Dirk Stamer, stated that there was no misconduct in funding practice or in the political leadership.
Thomas de Jesus Fernandes (AfD), on the other hand, criticized that the PUA work had been restricted by the SPD / CDU government coalition and that there could be no question of a proper investigation.
The state parliament special committee also heard Olijnyk as a witness.
According to the PUA, the ex-AWO manager last received 150,000 euros a year.
In addition, he wanted 35,000 euros in royalties a year and a lifelong company pension of 2000 euros.
Olijnyk defended his income as "appropriate".
He helped build the AWO Müritz and made the non-profit AWO GmbH a successful company.
His termination without notice in June 2016 hit him like a bolt from the blue, he said.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210210-99-381741 / 2