AFD leader who quit is charged with perjury
THE former leader of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party (AFD) could face a prison sentence after she was charged with perjury yesterday.
Frauke Petry, who dramatically resigned from the AFD the day after win- ning a seat in parliament in last week’s elections, is accused of lying under oath about the party’s finances.
If guilty, she faces six months in jail and a political career in tatters. Ms Petry denied the charge, saying she had made an innocent mistake.
The AFD became the first nationalist party to be elected to the Bundestag since the Sixties when it came third in last week’s national elections.
But the party’s celebrations were marred when Ms Petry walked out, accusing her former colleagues of turning the AFD into an extremist party and saying she would sit as an independent MP. The charges relate to an AFD campaign during regional elections in Saxony, her home state, in 2014.
She is accused of lying to an electoral commission investigating allegations that the AFD had pressurised candidates into making loans to the party by threatening to deselect them.
Ms Petry, who has always maintained her innocence, said she spoke in error to the commission. “The truth is I misremembered. I would gladly have corrected my mistake,” she said.
The case is not expected to come to court for some time.