Vienna court clears former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz of false statement charges

Kurz was cleared on Monday of a suspended eight-month jail sentence for allegedly giving false testimony to a parliamentary inquiry last year.

Vienna's Higher Regional Court, on Monday, overturned former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's eight-month suspended prison sentence for making false statements in a parliamentary inquiry.Judges at Vienna's upper state court threw out Kurz's conviction after a short appeal hearing, the Austria Press Agency reported."What came out is what I have always said — namely, that I did not tell untruths to the parliamentary inquiry," Kurz said in a brief statement to reporters outside the courtroom after Monday's decision."I now have a long time in (legal) proceedings behind me, and to be honest I'd like to set out my position in detail, but I ask for your understanding that I'm going home to family and my two children first," Kurz added.The case centered on Kurz's testimony to an inquiry that focused on the coalition he led from 2017, when his conservative Austrian People's Party formed a coalition with the far-right Freedom Party, until its collapse in 2019.Prosecutors accused the 38-year-old of giving false evidence in June 2020 regarding his role in setting up a holding company, OeBAG, which administers the state's role in some companies and appointing former close confidant Thomas Schmid to its leadership.Kurz was found guilty of making false statements about the company's supervisory board, though not about Schmid. Judges on Monday upheld the conviction of Kurz's former chief of staff, Bernhard Bonelli, for making a false statement to the parliamentary inquiry about his own involvement and that of Kurz in the selection of OeBAG supervisory board members. He was given a six-month suspended sentence last year. Kurz said he deeply regrets the decision on Bonelli.The former leader of the Alpine country appealed the sentence after the four-month court case, which was the first time a former Austrian chancellor had stood trial in more than 30 years. Once a rising star among conservatives in Europe, Kurz resigned in 2021. His People's Party still leads the government under current Chancellor Christian Stocker, although it finished second in an election in September.