The Munich public prosecutor’s office has applied for a penalty order against the Austrian politician Gerald Grosz for allegedly insulting Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) and Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) in a speech on Ash Wednesday.
According to the application, which the Deggendorf district court now has to decide, Grosz is to pay a fine of 90 daily rates of 400 euros, i.e. 36,000 euros. The allegations are two counts of insulting people from political life and violating the Assembly Act. Grosz is said to have had a knife with him without permission at the event.
A spokesman for the district court in Deggendorf confirmed on Friday that the application for a penalty order had been received. The public prosecutor’s office accuses Grosz, among other things, of having called Söder a “corona autocrat”, “traitor to the country” and “Södolf” on February 22 at the AfD’s political Ash Wednesday in Osterhofen in Lower Bavaria. Among other things, he called Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) a “horror clown”. In another case, involving an email sent on May 12, prosecutors said the case against Grosz was dropped. Grosz’s attorney, Alexander Stevens, explained that neither the defense attorneys nor Grosz were aware of this alternative procedure.
The alleged insults, in turn, which Söder and Lauterbach would pursue on the basis of a criminal complaint, are “evidently not punishable”. Stevens also relies on a legal opinion. Assuming a punishable insult would mean forbidding any emotionality in the political debate, Stevens quotes from it. It was also not clear whether the item being carried was a knife, Stevens emphasized.
For his part, Grosz had filed two criminal charges against Söder, partly because he considered Söder’s complaint to be unlawful. He argues that his statements were made in the course of the political dispute. He had expressed criticism of the Corona policy. That is covered by freedom of speech.
Grosz has held several positions in Austria with the right-wing populist parties FPÖ and BZÖ. In 2022 he received 5.6 percent of the votes in the presidential election in the neighboring country.