Zoom Image
Former FPÖ leader Heinz-Christian Strache at an event in December 2022
Photo: Max Slovencik / EXPA / picture alliance
The clarification of the expenses affair of the Viennese FPÖ is made more difficult by a document destruction operation. This emerges from the official interrogation of FPÖ finance officer Ulrike Nittmann, the minutes of which are available to SPIEGEL and the "Standard". At the center of the expenses affair of the state party is the long-time federal chairman Heinz-Christian Strache. He is suspected of having had private expenses reimbursed from party funds of the right-wing populists – which Strache denies.
Strache had resigned as vice-chancellor and FPÖ chairman in May 2019 after the so-called Ibiza affair, the government collapsed, and new elections were held. A short time later, he was expelled from the FPÖ.
In addition to Strache, other well-known FPÖ figures are also in the sights of the judiciary. It is piquant that the former party friends sorted out the "Strache documents" and saved them from destruction – of all things. The papers could further harm him.
Receipts disposed of
According to Nittmann's statements, significant parts of the reports from the years before 2022 were already disposed of at the beginning of 2019 – allegedly due to lack of space. According to Nittmann, tax consultants and auditors had previously reviewed the material, and it was "no longer relevant to us".
The investigators wanted to know from Nittmann whether the legal retention period of seven years would have been considered – because this is what the FPÖ is guided by according to the federal rules of procedure. The financial officer and lawyer then explained "that I was not aware of these federal rules of procedure." Nittmann's ignorance is also remarkable elsewhere: she could not say why the copies of the cash reports from November 2015 onwards are missing.
She claims to have previously discussed the destruction of documents with FPÖ officials, including the Viennese state party leader Dominik Nepp and the EU deputy Harald Vilimsky. Both top executives are now also considered accused in the financial scandal. Strache denies all allegations, neither he nor Nepp, Nittmann or Vilimsky wanted to comment on the case.
The dubious handling of the party's assets is said to have been known within the party, as Strache's former bodyguard Oliver Ribarich already described in the podcast "Inside Austria". The saying is said to have been considered an ongoing joke among the right-wingers: "Nothing is too expensive for us for other people's money."