Overview
- Prosecutors in Hannover confirmed on Wednesday that they have opened an investigation into Steffen Krach and executed searches at three sites in Berlin and Hannover.
- Reported search sites include Krach’s Schöneberg flat, the Berlin SPD Landeszentrale in Wedding, and business rooms in Hannover, and Krach says investigators seized his mobile phone.
- Authorities are probing suspected bribery linked to a hospital procurement in Lehrte with reporting focused on a roughly €9,500 donation that Krach says was returned within 24 hours.
- Krach and the Berlin SPD have strongly denied wrongdoing and say they will fully cooperate with investigators while the office stresses the presumption of innocence.
- The probe compounds political risk for the SPD less than two weeks before the 20 September Abgeordnetenhaus vote and follows earlier May searches of a bidder tied to the same Lehrte project when Krach was Regionspräsident.