Almost exactly a year after its appointment, the state parliament’s mask committee is on the home stretch. Three important witnesses are still on the hearing list this week.
Munich (dpa / lby) - With ex-minister of health Melanie Huml and deputy prime minister Hubert Aiwanger, there are other top-class witnesses at the start of the week in the mask committee of the state parliament. The start (9:30 a.m.) in the 44th meeting of the committee will be made by the CSU politician, who headed the Ministry of Health at the beginning of the pandemic and until about a year ago. Huml's successor Klaus Holetschek (CSU) had already testified before the committee of inquiry and rejected criticism of the state government's corona management.
Among other things, Huml's questioning should be about how she personally supported the establishment of individual mask shops. As a former Minister of Health, she bears the political responsibility for mask procurement. Free voter boss Aiwanger also supported the purchase of masks during the pandemic through contacts in his Ministry of Economic Affairs. His interrogation is scheduled for Monday afternoon (2:30 p.m.).
The aim of the committee set up by the state parliament in December 2021 at the urging of the SPD, Greens and FDP was and is in particular to clarify mask deals by the state government in the corona pandemic as well as possible involvement of politicians and sometimes high commission payments to MPs - with the commissions from participating companies. On Friday (December 16), Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) is to be the last witness to be heard.
At the center of the mask affair are the long-standing CSU MPs Alfred Sauter and Georg Nüßlein, who received lavish commissions at the beginning of the corona pandemic for arranging mask shops. From a legal point of view, the Federal Court of Justice did not see the offense of bribery as fulfilled - because the deputies would have had to act in parliament themselves. Sauter and Nüßlein always emphasized that they acted as lawyers in their roles. Nevertheless, CSU top politicians have described the actions of the two former colleagues as morally reprehensible.
