Fritz Zeder takes over

Successor to Christian Pilnacek now known

The head of the legislative department responsible for ancillary criminal law, Fritz Zeder, is to become the new head of the criminal law section in the Ministry of Justice. He succeeds Christian Pilnacek, who died last year and was recently suspended. 

As the Ministry of Justice announced on Thursday, Zeder, Senior Public Prosecutor and Honorary Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Vienna, will take up the vacant position on April 1st.

The section was most recently headed on an interim basis by Christian Manquet, who retired at the end of January. The Criminal Law Section also includes the department previously headed by Zeder.

Highest-ranking official found dead
Pilnacek was found dead in the night of October 20 near Krems after a police check in which his driving license was confiscated. He had been suspended since 2021 due to an initial suspicion of betrayal of official secrecy. Although the Federal Disciplinary Commission lifted the suspension for the time being, it was confirmed again in the next higher instances.

In April 2023, the suspension was again discussed before a commission, but Pilnacek once again maintained his innocence. His death brought the proceedings to an end without a legally binding result. 

Audio recordings of attempted ÖVP influence peddling
A few weeks after Pilnacek's death, secretly recorded audio recordings became public. The explosive tape deals with alleged attempts to influence proceedings by ÖVP politicians.

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 downtown Vienna.

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