The corruption scandal at the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor's Office is spreading - and is provoking massive criticism from the opposition in the Hessian state parliament.
As it became known over the weekend, another public prosecutor is now under investigation.
The initial suspicion of aiding infidelity existed against him, it said.
According to information from the German Press Agency, a spokeswoman for the Frankfurt public prosecutor's office confirmed the investigations against the lawyer at the weekend.
There are now three suspects after it became known in the summer of 2020 that investigations were underway against a senior prosecutor from the Attorney General's Office.
He is accused of commercial bribery, breach of trust in office and tax evasion.
The damage to the state of Hesse is said to be around 500,000 euros.
It is about overpriced expert opinions and bills in the medical field, which are said to have been awarded to certain companies in exchange for money.
A spokeswoman for the public prosecutor's office told Hessischer Rundfunk about the third suspect: "This public prosecutor was last employed in 2018 at the Central Office for Combating Property Crimes and Corruption in the Public Prosecutor's Office." The Frankfurt investigators had already announced at the end of last year that they had expanded their investigations into the complex case to include a second lawyer, who is also accused of aiding and abetting embezzlement.
"The swamp of corruption at the Attorney General's Office is apparently greater than previously known," commented the SPD parliamentary group leader in the state parliament, Günter Rudolph, on the new findings: "The Alexander B. system was not recognized for years and since it was discovered rather by accident, the responsible Minister of Justice has been silent .
The speechlessness and inaction of CDU Minister Eva Kühne-Hörmann is now just as scandalous as the corruption affair itself.” Rudolph called on the Minister of Justice, who bears political responsibility for the case, to finally act and also to bear the personal consequences .
The FDP parliamentary group warned that trust in the rule of law and the judiciary would be permanently damaged if the allegations were not fully clarified.
"Should the suspicion against the third public prosecutor be substantiated, this unfortunately reinforces the picture that we have feared for a long time: Alexander B. presumably did not act alone, but created a system B.," said the legal policy spokeswoman for the Liberals, Marion Schardt Sauer.