A serious case of sexual abuse led to discussions in the Baden-Württemberg CDU.

A former elected official is said to have had a sexual relationship with a godchild who was then 13 or 14 years old between 2007 and 2011.

It is said to have been the daughter of a close friend who had recently died.

The age difference between the alleged perpetrator and the alleged victim was 30 years.

The alleged victim is said to have ended the relationship in 2011 and then reported the politician in 2018.

Rudiger Soldt

Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.

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There were two investigations, one was terminated due to lack of evidence under Section 170(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure;

the second was also discontinued after the payment of a fine of 30,000 euros in accordance with Section 153a of the Code of Criminal Procedure without acknowledgment of guilt, because the allegations here could not be sufficiently proven either.

According to information from the FAZ, the beginning of the sexual relationship could not be proven.

In principle, it is possible to start the preliminary investigation again, unless all allegations of crime have become statute-barred.

The former politician is considered innocent, to protect his personal rights, the former accused is represented by a well-known media lawyer.

The accused has always denied the allegations made against him.

The newspaper “Welt am Sonntag” reported on the case for the first time in April in a completely anonymous form.

Within the Baden-Württemberg CDU, the man was considered a backbencher with little influence in the state party and also in the political bodies to which he belonged.

There are said to have been rumors in the former elected official's place of residence, and some journalists are said to have tried to research the case as early as 2021, but to no avail.

The CDU state leadership has now asked the former MP, who is considered innocent, to leave the party.

Apparently he refuses.

A CDU district chairman said the case presented his party with a major dilemma that could not be resolved for legal reasons: "If he had been sentenced under the rule of law, we could have initiated a party exclusion procedure.

It is therefore unsatisfactory for us that we can only morally condemn this presumably very abysmal behavior.” If the responsible district association or the CDU federal executive board sought a party exclusion procedure, this would fail and the party would only publicly demonstrate its incompetence.

"There is simply no legal basis," said the district chairman.

Would the new sex criminal law have allowed an indictment?

There might have been an indictment if the public prosecutors had had to take the amended sexual criminal law into account since 2021.

At that time, the penalty had been increased, which would have led to a later statute of limitations.

The competent public prosecutor's office has not commented on the case.

"We do not confirm the procedure because the interests of the persons worthy of protection take precedence," said a spokeswoman.

This week, the former accused gave up his last remaining party office.

The case is complicated by the fact that one of the responsible district association chairmen was informed about the alleged actions of the elected official because he was previously a high-ranking police officer in the region.

He was therefore informed by the public prosecutor's office about the investigation.

The state Ministry of Justice was also informed because the investigations concerned the immunity of an elected official and because parliamentary bodies could have been involved in the investigations.

The police officer and the former state justice minister Guido Wolf (CDU) had to treat their information as official secrets, which is why they had no suitable means of preventing the mandate holder from being nominated again.

The CDU state association only claims to have learned about the events from the newspaper article in April.

A spokesman said: "The national association was shocked by the anonymous reporting in the present case.

We disapprove of such possible behavior and make it clear that it must have no place in the CDU.

There is broad agreement on this within the relevant levels of the party.”