Sebastian Kurz conditionally sentenced to eight months in prison

(Patria) - Former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has been sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended, for giving false testimony, the Vienna court announced yesterday.

The reasoning for the verdict states that Kurz gave false testimony to a parliamentary committee conducting an investigation, Hina reports.

The court announced that the evidence shows Kurz had a greater influence on the appointment of the supervisory board of the state holding company Öbag than he admitted to the parliamentary committee investigating the Ibiza affair.

Kurz, who was the Austrian Chancellor from 2017 to 2019, and then from 2020 to 2021, told the committee in 2020 that he was aware of the events but did not actively intervene.

In the case of the appointment of Kurz's former associate Thomas Schmid as head of Öbag, the judge acquitted the former chancellor of charges of false testimony.

The 37-year-old Kurz has maintained his innocence throughout. He withdrew from politics at the end of 2021 and is now an entrepreneur.

He led the coalition of the conservative ÖVP party and the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) from 2017 to 2019. He then led the ÖVP and Green alliance from 2020 to 2021.

The former chancellor faces another trial in the so-called advertising affair, in which he and his team allegedly commissioned false polls and paid for them with taxpayer money.

His team is accused of advertising in various media in the hope of receiving favorable coverage. An investigation is underway against ten suspects for the criminal offenses of bribery, corruption, and embezzlement.