Austria’s former conservative chancellor Sebastian Kurz was found guilty of perjury on Friday at the end of a trial in which he was accused of lying to a parliamentary committee, AFP reported.

“Sebastian Kurz is guilty,” said a judge in Vienna, handing down an eight-month suspended sentence in the first instance at the request of the prosecutor general.

Earlier, in his latest statement, the 37-year-old former head of government, who can appeal, said he felt “helpless” and “very bad” that he had been accused, but he never intended to lie.

During twelve days of hearings, the former prime minister, now a private-sector consultant, insisted on his innocence, blaming prosecutors and opponents for his judicial failures. “They wanted to destroy me,” he said.

Aged 31, he became the youngest elected world leader in 2017 before stepping down in autumn 2021.

Sebastian Kurz denied he “deliberately” misled MPs when they questioned him in 2020 about his role in appointing his close friend Thomas Schmid as chairman of a very powerful public holding company.

“I was informed, but I didn’t decide,” he said, while the prosecution presented him, on the contrary, as someone who controlled everything inside his political formation, in particular based on the numerous text messages that were analyzed.

Russian witnesses

In Austria, interfering with the nomination process is not a crime in itself, but concealing the truth during an interrogation under oath is punishable by up to three years in prison.

Most of the witnesses called – about ten in total, including former ministers – defended his version of events.

However, the main character made an exception: Thomas Schmid, a former friend who now cooperates with the justice system in the hope of a reduced sentence.

During the two-day hearing, Schmid accused him of being a “Kurtz system,” saying Kurtz likes to meddle in appointments.

To discredit him, Sebastian Kurz summoned two Russian businessmen, and the last day of the trial began with the testimony of the second of them, who appeared on video from the Austrian embassy in Moscow.

“A grotesque final act,” according to the daily newspaper Der Standard: the first had already surprised the audience by saying that the accused’s lawyer had helped him make a statement.