Germany’s ex-pres. charged with bribery

The public prosecutor in the northern city of Hanover filed on Friday corruption charges against Wullf over alleged favors that forced him to resign last year.

The prosecutors accuse Wulff of lobbying Siemens AG to help market the film “John Rabe”, after a movie producer paid the former president’s expenses of about 4,000 euros during a trip with his family to Munich’s Oktoberfest festival in 2008.

The move came after Wullf rejected on April 9 a settlement offer with an out-of-court payment of up to 50,000 euros ($65,000), saying he would rather fight in court to clear his name.

Wulff resigned in February 2012, after prosecutors asked parliament to lift his immunity since they suspected him of accepting undue privileges while he was Lower Saxony’s governor.

The scandal was initiated by German newspaper Bild, which accused him of misleading the state assembly over a cheap home loan he accepted from a businessman friend.

Wullf later apologized publically for threatening the editor of the newspaper with “war” if the story would be published.

If Wulff is to answer charges in court, he would become Germany’s first former head of state to do so.

CAH/JR

Source Article from http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/04/12/297903/germanys-expres-charged-with-bribery/

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