The extent of the corruption scandal in the Attorney General's Office is greater than previously known.

This is shown by statements by Minister of Justice Roman Poseck (CDU) in the legal committee of the state parliament.

As reported, the public prosecutor's office has brought charges against senior public prosecutor Alexander B., the former head of the "Central Office for Combating Property Crimes and Corruption in the Health Care System".

In this function, the fifty-five-year-old is said to have given expert opinions to an acquaintance's company and received money for it.

According to Poseck, orders for the company totaled EUR 15.6 million over the entire period.

Ewald Hetrodt

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung in Wiesbaden.

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According to the Poseck public prosecutor, the total damage caused to the state of Hesse is estimated at ten million euros.

When the indictment was filed, the authority had announced that B. had an asset management obligation towards the state as employer because of his position as head of the central office.

Because he signed invoices as correct in the period from August 2015 to July 2020, the factual inaccuracy of which he was aware of, he caused financial loss of 645,000 euros.

Internal audit last in 2013

The State of Hesse's Court of Auditors is raising serious allegations against both the Attorney General's Office and the Ministry of Justice, which until recently was headed by Eva Kühne-Hörmann (CDU).

The report, which is available to this newspaper, "complained that the Attorney General's Office did not adequately monitor the commissioning of experts".

A small internal audit last took place in 2013.

A major internal audit has not been carried out for almost twelve years.

If one had examined a period of several years, the matter would have been noticed from the point of view of the Court of Auditors.

Politicians are also accused of not having exercised their “expert supervision sufficiently”.

"The Court of Auditors complains about the lack of internal auditing of the accounting of the administration of the Attorney General's Office by the Ministry." He expects a timely examination.

Poseck, who took office a few weeks ago, spoke of a "catastrophe" for the rule of law.

"Freedom from corruption was and is a trademark of the judiciary," said the CDU politician.

There shouldn't be any repeat cases.

However, the case was only “a bad outlier”.

The employees of the Hessian judiciary are of integrity and have his complete trust.