Deletion with consequences: pollster B. arrested – lobbying & corruption

From the point of view of the Economic and Corruption Public Prosecutor’s Office (WKStA), it was “ideally suited to the implementation of the crime plan”: together with her former boss, ex-family minister Sophie Karmasin, opinion researcher Sabine B. is supposed to be the central link between the Fellner brothers and the Kurz team have been. On Tuesday, less than a week after the large-scale house searches, B. was arrested. She is accused of having deleted data shortly before the house search. The WKStA apparently sees a risk of obscuration, which would be a reason for pre-trial detention. A detention and legal protection judge must decide on this. The investigating WKStA did not issue a statement on Tuesday; neither did B’s lawyer. According to research by the press, the media group Austria is said to have tried to commission IT companies to delete data in mid-September – according to editor-in-chief Niki Fellner it was about a “serious case of cybercrime”.