"Illegal act"

Pilnacek tape: public prosecutor launches investigation

The late former head of the justice section Christian Pilnacek

(Bild: APA/Helmut Fohringer)

The Vienna public prosecutor's office is now investigating in connection with a secretly recorded tape of private statements by the former head of the justice department, Christian Pilnacek. The explosive tape concerns alleged attempts to influence proceedings by ÖVP politicians.

It is suspected that the man who made the recordings with content critical of the ÖVP is the target of the public prosecutor's investigations. However, there is no confirmation of this. The investigation is based on Section 120 of the Criminal Code ("misuse of listening devices"), "profil" reported on Saturday.

Third man consents to prosecution
In order to be able to investigate this offense, the public prosecutor's office actually needs the consent of the person who was wiretapped. Pilnacek, who has since died, can no longer give his consent. According to "profil", however, the third man who was sitting at the table on the night of the recording gave his consent. The German businessman confirmed to the magazine that he had insisted on this during his interrogation by the State Criminal Police Office, as he had also been a victim of the "illegal act".

The conversation with Pilnacek, who officially died by suicide on October 20 of the previous year, was secretly recorded - via detours, the contents ended up in the "Krone", among others. The contents of the tape are explosive: he had been asked to stop investigations - "I can't do that, I won't", Pilnacek had said during the conversation last summer.

Zadic set up a sub-commission
A sub-commission set up by Justice Minister Alma Zadic (Greens) is to investigate the question of whether the People's Party actually tried to exert influence on judicial investigations, as statements by Pilnacek, who was once the most powerful judicial official in the republic, suggested in the conversation on July 28 in a no-tell bar in Vienna's city center.