Ex-Austrian Vice Chancellor Sues German Papers Over Ibiza Sting Video – Reports

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Austria’s former chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache has filed lawsuits against two German newspapers for spreading the sting operation video that cost him his office, Austria’s Der Standard said Monday.

Strache’s German lawyer called with the Munich prosecutor’s office last Friday and lodged a written complaint against the Munich-based Sueddeutsche Zeitung, according to Der Standard.

A similar accusation of "production, dissemination and publication of the video" was reportedly filed with the Hamburg prosecution against local Der Spiegel magazine.

This follows Strache’s lawsuits in Vienna against a lawyer, detective and the suspected Latvian woman who he holds responsible for luring him into the pitfall that took down the entire Austrian coalition government.

A video filmed in an apparent sting operation at a luxury Ibiza hotel in 2017 made headlines in Austria and Germany last month. It showed Strache discussing ways to avoid party financing rules with a woman posing as a niece of a Russian oligarch. She was later revealed to be a Bosnian student paid to entrap the leader of the right-wing Freedom Party.