Prisoners are said to have worked for a German AfD politician on an onion farm in Belarus. The public prosecutor’s office is now also dealing with the case.
The Saxon AfD welcomes the public prosecutor’s investigation against its state parliament member Jörg Dornau. For several days now, regional and national media have been reporting that a member of parliament was letting prisoners work on his farm in Belarus, and individual reports also mentioned forced labor, the AfD regional association said. The public prosecutor’s office has now started preliminary investigations in this case. You can read more about the case here.
Dornau runs an onion farm in Belarus. In the past, he himself and his party did not respond to inquiries from the dpa news agency about the allegations against him.
AfD General Secretary Jan Zwerg emphasized: “We as the Saxon AfD welcome the fact that this case is now being investigated in a legally clean and fact-oriented manner. We trust the independent Saxon judiciary.” The allegations in the media are largely made anonymously, and there are contradictory reports – sometimes there is talk of forced labor, and sometimes that the prisoners do the work voluntarily.
“We are presumed innocent until the case is resolved. We will not comment on any pending proceedings in this case,” explained Zwerg. The AfD regional association will decide everything else once the case is on the table.
In the summer, the state parliament imposed a fine of 20,862 euros on the AfD MP Dornau because, in the opinion of the executive committee, he violated his reporting obligations under the MPs Act. He did not report his participation in an agricultural company in Belarus within the legally required period and did not declare his activity as a director of the company in a timely manner, it was said.