Raid against Berlin SPD top candidate Steffen Krach shakes up election campaigns in Berlin and Lower Saxony

A raid against the Berlin SPD top candidate Steffen Krach shakes up two election campaigns at the same time. Krach rejected the allegations in Berlin with a transfer receipt and stated that he had immediately transferred a donation of 9,900 euros from Hanover back to the SPD regional association, while the public prosecutor's office remained silent about the investigation after searches in his apartment, the Berlin SPD headquarters and former offices in Hanover. At the center is a dispute over the sale of a former clinic site in Lehrte, in which Krach, as regional president, is said to have preferred the entrepreneur Gaurav Garg, although his offer could have been changed after the deadline and the supervisory board suspected that internal information had been passed on. In the end, the contract was awarded to a competitor, but when investigators later evaluated Garg's documents and accounts, they discovered the transfer to the Berlin SPD, which could have given rise to the initial suspicion against Krach. The timing shortly before the elections in Lower Saxony and Berlin is politically explosive and controversial, even if the justice system and the ministry emphasize that the proceedings were only opened at the beginning of September and were covered by a judge.

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