German prosecutors probe far-right lawmaker for bribery

German prosecutors launched an investigation into a lawmaker of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on suspicion of bribery and money laundering and searched several properties on Thursday, reported dpa.

According to dpa information, the person in question is Petr Bystron, the second candidate on the party's ticket for the European elections in June. Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, had waived Bystron's immunity.

The public prosecutor's office in Munich said searches were planned for Bystron's office in Berlin, several locations in Bavaria in the districts of Munich, Erding and Deggendorf and on the Spanish island of Mallorca during the course of Thursday.

According to the report, 11 public prosecutors and around 70 officers from the Bavarian police force were deployed.

Properties of witnesses who are not accused in the proceedings were also searched, a spokesman for the public prosecution said. The main aim was to seize documents and data carriers in order to search them for evidence, he said.

Bystron and another leading AfD politician, Maximilian Krah, have come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks for alleged links to pro-Russian networks. Following media reports about possible payments to both politicians, public prosecutors recently examined whether to open an investigation.

Krah, a member of the European Parliament, is the AfD's top candidate for the European elections in June.

Bystron has been the AfD's chairman of the Bundestag's Foreign Affairs Committee since 2017. Since 2021, he has also been his party's foreign policy spokesman and its representative to the Council of Europe and the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

Bystron himself could not initially be reached for comment.

The Munich public prosecutor pointed out that the presumption of innocence applies until a possible conviction.

The AfD had been polling nationally at around 20%, amid high dissatisfaction with Chancellor Olaf Scholz's three-party coalition, but support has dropped to between 16 and 18% following a series of recent scandals.

The AfD's signature issue is a hard-line anti-immigration stance, and the party is profiting from increased concern among many German voters over rising numbers of people seeking asylum in the country.

Earlier this week, a regional court decided that Germany's intelligence services can classify the AfD as a suspected extremist group. The party said it plans to appeal the ruling.