Instead of 3.5 years
Not a single day in prison: Meischberger avoids jail time
Walter Meischberger, former FPÖ secretary-general and lobbyist, has practically avoided a prison sentence in the BUWOG trial: despite a legally binding sentence of three and a half years in prison, he will not have to spend a single day behind bars and will instead wear an ankle bracelet.
This makes his situation very different from that of his former co-defendant, ex-Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser, who spent several months in prison before also switching to an ankle bracelet.
Sentence already reduced by Supreme Court
Meischberger and Grasser were originally sentenced to significantly longer terms in the BUWOG trial at the Vienna Regional Criminal Court: in 2020, Grasser received eight years and Meischberger seven years in prison. After appeals to the Supreme Court (OGH), the sentences were reduced: Grasser was sentenced to four years and Meischberger to 3.5 years in prison.
Requirements for electronic tagging recently lowered
The judiciary justified Meischberger's immediate entry into electronically monitored house arrest on the basis of several factors: the shorter prison sentence, applications for postponement of imprisonment on health grounds, and corresponding expert opinions, which took additional time. On September 1, 2025, the legal requirements for ordering electronic tagging were also lowered – a change from which Meischberger now benefited.
The background to the convictions: according to the judgment and investigations, both politicians had enriched themselves in the course of the privatization of federal apartments. In the process, almost ten million euros in illegal commissions are said to have been paid. Grasser was able to leave the Innsbruck prison on January 2, 2026, and has also been under electronic surveillance since then.
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