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Austrian prosecutors have ordered an inquiry into the death of a government official who was suspended while being investigated as part of a sprawling probe into high-level political corruption.
The body of Christian Pilnacek, who was the most senior official at the ministry of justice and an important ally of former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz, was discovered on Friday.
Austrian media reported that he died by suicide, but police have not confirmed the circumstances of his death and prosecutors ordered an autopsy on Monday.
Police arrested Pilnacek for drunk driving on Thursday night after he drove the wrong way down a motorway on his way home to the Wachau wine region outside the capital. He had attended a dinner at a high-end Italian restaurant in Vienna and a drinks reception at the Hungarian embassy.
Anti-corruption prosecutors had been looking into whether Pilnacek had intervened in sensitive judicial cases in order to serve the interests of politicians and businessmen close to Kurz and his conservative People’s Party (ÖVP), as one element of a multipronged investigation into political graft under the former chancellor.
Pilnacek was suspended from his role of state secretary at the ministry of justice in 2021, but vigorously denied the allegations against him.
Kurz resigned that same year in response to the broader scandal.
Once a powerful éminence grise within Vienna’s corridors of power — dubbed by critics “the secret justice minister” — Pilnacek had found himself thrust into the public eye because of the probe. Messages from his phones, seized as part of the investigation, were leaked, painting a lurid picture of his political machinations and loyalty to the ÖVP.
Kurz is currently standing trial in Vienna on charges of misleading a separate special parliamentary inquiry into corruption. On Saturday, he praised Pilnacek as an unparalleled jurist who had served his country with distinction.
“Although we in Austria like to pride ourselves on being a developed constitutional state that upholds human rights, some are treated as if we were still living in the Middle Ages, where people are pilloried and publicly humiliated,” said Kurz.
Other former senior civil servants have also become embroiled in the corruption scandal. Thomas Schmid, a former finance ministry official who was head of the Austrian sovereign wealth fund ÖBAG, was forced out of office in 2021. Last year Schmid agreed to turn crown witness in the probe.
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