Public prosecutor
Investigations closed after incident with Chrupalla
The AfD leader spoke of an attack that had been carried out on him. “Overall, this attack on me can be seen as an attack,” he said a few days after the hospital treatment in Berlin. However, the public prosecutor’s office assesses the incident differently. photo
© Britta Pedersen/dpa
What happened before an AfD election campaign rally in Ingolstadt? In any case, Federal Chief Chrupalla came to the hospital and then spoke of an attack. The public prosecutor sees it differently and wants to close the case.
After the AfD chairman’s hospital treatment The public prosecutor’s office has closed the investigation into Tino Chrupalla because of an incident at a campaign event. No evidence of a crime could have been identified, senior public prosecutor Veronika Grieser said on Wednesday. The AfD chairman criticized the decision.
Chrupalla had to cancel a campaign appearance in Ingolstadt on October 4th for the Bavarian state elections that took place a few days later. Before his speech, he was taken to hospital and temporarily monitored in the intensive care unit due to discomfort. After a day he was able to leave the clinic again. Doctors found a puncture wound in Chrupalla’s upper right arm.
Chrupalla speaks of an “attack”
The AfD leader spoke of an attack that had been carried out on him. “Overall, this attack on me can be seen as an attack,” he said a few days after the hospital treatment in Berlin.
However, the public prosecutor’s office assesses the incident differently. The authority emphasizes that no “act could be identified from which it could be concluded that there was an “attack”. “The fact that the injury was caused by an unknown person while staying at the Ingolstadt Theaterplatz cannot be ruled out,” explained the senior public prosecutor. “However, the investigation did not reveal any concrete evidence or evidence of such an attack during the visit to the election campaign event or in the immediate run-up to the visit.”
Forensics prepare reports
The public prosecutor’s office relies, among other things, on a report from the Institute for Forensic Medicine at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. The experts therefore assume that the puncture was five millimeters deep. It is believed that Chrupalla was stabbed in the arm with a pin. The wide head of such a needle could have prevented a deeper puncture. There is no evidence that Chrupalla was injected with poison. Chrupalla’s symptoms also do not indicate poisoning.
The public prosecutor emphasizes that a number of people who were present at Ingolstädter Platz were questioned as witnesses. These included Chrupalla’s office manager and four bodyguards from the Federal Criminal Police Office. In addition, two television stations and some witnesses provided 10 videos and 42 photos that were evaluated.
“No further effective investigative approaches emerged,” said the spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office. Chrupalla’s lawyer sent suggestions for evidence to the investigators at the end of November. But this did not provide any evidence for further investigation.
Chrupalla wants to examine further legal options
“On the one hand, it is positive that, as part of the investigation, the stab wound caused by a needle or a similar object is now considered certain,” commented the AfD leader. However, the discontinuation of the investigation is inexplicable to him because, in his view, “information requested from other authorities is still outstanding to this day.”
“With the help of a lawyer, we are now waiting for the announced granting of access to the files,” explained Chrupalla. His aim is to exhaust all possibilities for clarification and, if necessary, to prepare a complaint against the employment.