Kohl Accepts Fine To Avoid Trial
A German court said Friday it has approved a deal allowing former Chancellor Helmut Kohl to pay a fine and avoid criminal charges in his party's financing scandal. Kohl accepted, but his political foes accused him of buying his way out.
Under the deal with prosecutors in Bonn, an investigation into possible breach of trust charges will be closed as soon as Kohl pays a $140,000 fine. Kohl's lawyer, Stephan Holthoff-Pfoertner, said the former chancellor would pay.
Prosecutors in the former German capital, where Kohl governed for 16 years, opened their probe in January 2000 after he admitted accepting illegal campaign donations when he was chancellor and leader of the Christian Democratic party.
Months of legal maneuvering followed as Kohl attempted to stave off further damage to his reputation as one of his nation's most respected postwar statesmen and the chancellor who united Germany in 1990.
The Bonn state court said Friday the investigation left open whether Kohl had committed a crime, and it chided the ex-chancellor for failing to set a good public example. But it stressed his fine payment would "not represent an admission of guilt."
In closing the case, the court cited Kohl's political legacy and accepted his statement that the illegal donations went into campaigning, not his own pocket. The court also questioned whether a drawn-out legal battle would be in the public interest.
Kohl has three months to pay the fine — half to charity, the other half into public coffers.
Still, a parliamentary investigation continues against the former chancellor into allegations that he sold government favors during his years in power from 1982 to 1998.
Kohl, 70, denies decisions by his government were for sale. But once the criminal case is formally closed, he can no longer cite a criminal investigation in refusing testimony to the lawmakers.
A key issue is Kohl's refusal to name the campaign donors who he says gave him roughly $1 million in cash during the 1990s. Kohl says he promised to keep their names secret and won't break his word — defying campaign finance laws that make anonymous donations illegal.
The governing Social Democrats assailed Kohl's behavior, saying his example suggests that famous people have more clout before the law.
"Helmut Kohl has stayed true to himself," the party's secretary general Franz Muentefering said. "Now he has bought his way out of the investigation."
Some members of parliament's investigating committee have raised the possibility of asking a court to fine or even jail Kohl if he refuses to talk.
"Now Kohl must testify and name the donors," said lawmaker Frank Hofmann of the governing Social Democrats.
To deflect the breach of trust charges, Kohl has privately raised millions to pay back fines that parliament imposed on his party for anonymous donations he says he accepted in the 1990s. He opted to raise the money rather than name the donors.
Kohl's November 1999 admission that he accepted some $1 million in undeclared contributions touched off a party scandal that has grown to include illegal bookkeeping, secret accounts abroad and off-the-books cash handovers.
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