Magdeburg (dpa/sa) - Former member of the state parliament Arnd Czapek (CDU) has to repay around 300,000 euros to the state. The Higher Administrative Court of Saxony-Anhalt made this clear, as the court announced on Wednesday. The background is allegations of fraud in connection with public money from the country's flood relief fund.
The Investment Bank (IB) once granted Czapek grants to repair damage to a building on the assumption that the damage was entirely caused by the 2013 flood. However, it later turned out that the building was already so dilapidated before the flood that it could not have been used for residential or commercial purposes without extensive renovation. The IB then canceled the two funding decisions.
Czapek sued against this, but lost in early February 2022 before the administrative court in Halle. He then appealed. The Higher Administrative Court has now confirmed the judgments.
There are no serious doubts about the correctness of the decisions, it said. Czapek obtained the grant "by providing incorrect information". When applying for the grants, he failed to indicate that the building was already in a state of disrepair before the flooding. On the contrary, he gave the impression that the measures for which he was applying for subsidies only concerned the elimination of structural defects that were attributable to the flooding.
"The two judgments of the Halle Administrative Court are therefore final." The plaintiff must now repay around 300,000 euros to the state.
In the 2021 state election, the CDU directly won 40 of the 41 constituencies in Saxony-Anhalt. Czapek only lost out to the AfD candidate in the Zeitz constituency. He would be the first successor if a CDU MP were to leave. Czapek was in parliament before, until 2016.
