Former German president to face corruption charges

Wulff was once a leading figure in Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats Party.

A former German president, Christian Wulff, is to appear before a court on charges of accepting benefits as a public official, sources said on Tuesday.

Prosecutors in Hanover filed corruption charges in April against Mr. Wulff, who was appointed to the largely ceremonial post of president in July 2010 and stepped down in February 2012 amid corruption claims and official moves to lift his immunity.

Mr. Wulff, who was once a leading figure in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats party, if convicted, could face a jail sentence of up to three years. The court hearing is expected to begin on November 1.

The prosecutors’ move against Mr. Wulff came as Germany entered the run-up to an election on September 22.

Mr. Wulff was alleged to have accepted partial payment for a stay in a luxury hotel during the 2008 Oktoberfest in Munich from a film producer friend, David Groenewold, whom he later helped by lobbying the conglomerate Siemens to provide money for a movie Mr. Groenewold was making at the time.

The hotel bill paid for by Mr. Groenewold amounted to $1,030 (N167, 000), newspaper Die Welt said.

Mr. Wulff 54, who has strongly denied the accusations, was at the time the premier of the state of Lower Saxony.

Earlier this year, Mr. Wulff ruled out a deal with public prosecutors where he would pay a fine of $27,000 (N4.3 million) in exchange for having the charges dropped. Instead, he has vowed to fight the claims in court in a bid to clear his name.

At the time, prosecutors said it was probable that Mr. Groenewold’s payment of hospitality in Munich “was done with the intention of encouraging the accused Wulff to use his office as premier of Lower Saxony to approach Siemens for support in the marketing of the film John Rabe.

Hamburg-born John Rabe was a Siemens official in China who is credited with saving the lives of more than 200,000 Chinese people during the Japanese invasion in 1937.

Mr. Groenewold’s film was released in 2009. It was a critical but not commercial success.

(dpa/NAN)