Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - In the letter affair about the suspended police inspector, the public prosecutor's office has temporarily stopped the proceedings against Interior Minister Thomas Strobl. The CDU politician will now receive a request to pay a monetary requirement. "After this payment, the final setting will follow," said a spokesman for the Stuttgart public prosecutor's office on Thursday. In the course of the affair, Strobl announced that he wanted to accept a payment of 15,000 euros to end the process. The Stuttgart Regional Court had already given its consent to the termination of the proceedings on Monday.
According to Strobl, he passed on a letter from a lawyer from the police inspector's lawyer to a journalist. According to investigations, the inspector, who has since been suspended, is said to have sexually molested a police officer in Stuttgart almost a year ago. The public prosecutor's office in Stuttgart recently brought charges of sexual assault.
The investigative proceedings against a journalist who works for the "Stuttgarter Nachrichten" and an employee of Minister Strobl were also dropped without money being imposed. The authority investigated the journalist on suspicion of prohibited communications about court hearings. The ministry employee is said to have given the letter for Strobl to the journalist.
Strobl had come under a lot of pressure because of the affair. The opposition demanded his resignation. However, the green-black coalition in the southwest has closed ranks behind the minister and rejected a motion to dismiss the CDU state chairman. A committee of inquiry is currently examining sexual harassment by the police as well as the practice of promotion and Strobl's actions.
