Harald Dobernig

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Harald Dobernig (born September 3, 1980 in Klagenfurt ) is a former Austrian politician of the BZÖ who was sentenced to imprisonment three times for infidelity. From October 2008 to March 2013 he was Provincial Councilor in Carinthia .

Education and political career

After graduating from high school, Dobernig studied business administration at the University of Klagenfurt and graduated in 2003. After completing a trainee program at Hypo-Alpe-Adria-Bank in Klagenfurt, he joined Governor Jörg Haider's office in 2004 , and became office manager in 2005. During this time he took on several supervisory board mandates in state-owned companies. Dobernig also carried out Haider's financial affairs with the Hypo-Alpe-Adria-Bank and was and is the contact person of the Carinthian government coalition for the financial investor Tilo Berlin .

He was also involved in Maria Saal and in the Klagenfurt-Land district for the BZÖ . In October 2008, he became State Councilor for Finance in the Dörfler I state government . His department included the agendas of finance, economy, the national companies, culture, as well as in agreement with the LHStv. Reinhart Rohr staff and special needs assignments. From November 2008 he was deputy state party chairman of the then BZÖ and now, after the separation of the " Freedom in Carinthia " (FPK) from the BZÖ on December 16, 2009, he continues to work in the same position at the "Freedom in Carinthia" (FPK).

In the state elections in Carinthia in 2009, Harald Dobernig - at that time still a candidate for the BZÖ - was sent again to the Carinthian state parliament and then reappointed to the regional council in the Carinthian state government. In the provincial government of Dörfler II , Dobernig's department again includes finances and culture / folk culture / customs as well as personnel and special needs allocations.

From April 2010 to August 2012, Harald Dobernig was also district party chairman deputy of the Freedom Party in Klagenfurt-Land under district chairman Mayor Adolf Stark. On August 20, 2012, Dobernig was appointed by District Chairman Adolf Stark as Executive District Chairman.

On March 25, 2013 Dobernig announced that he would waive his mandate in the Carinthian state parliament, which gave the FPK club strength. Dobernig himself was refused admission to the FPK Club, as the new party leader Christian Ragger considered him to be one of the main people responsible for the loss of votes in the Carinthian state election on March 3, 2013 . Dobernig rejected rumors that he had the FPK pay € 200,000 for the waiver. In April 2019, however, he announced that he would be suing the Carinthian FPÖ for payment of 200,000 euros, which the party said he had promised him in return for renouncing his parliamentary mandate. In August 2019, the Klagenfurt Regional Court confirmed receipt of the lawsuit. However, the sum claimed is only € 26,000. The FPÖ denies the claim.

Statement at the festival concert of the Carinthian Defense Fighters Association

On October 6, 2012, Dobernig gave a controversial speech at a gala concert of the Carinthian Abwehrkampfbund, in which he called the solution to the so-called local board dispute a gateway drug and denied the Slovenian ethnic group in Carinthia that they were “real Carinthians”. A day later, Dobernig said on ORF that he had never denied “that Slovene speakers are real Carinthians”, and at the same time reiterated his formulation of the bilingual place-name signs as a “gateway drug”, as there are more and more demands from the Slovenian side. He does not regret what he said, as he believes that he has not made a statement "that could have hurt someone."

Dobernig's statements were criticized on the following day by most of the parties and also by representatives of the Slovenes. Carinthia's SPÖ state party chairman, Peter Kaiser, described them as “terrifying”, Rolf Holub , Member of the Green Party, criticized them as “terribly hideous and completely otherworldly” and State Secretary Josef Ostermayer described them as simply “inhuman”. The Austrian Defense Minister Norbert Darabos found Dobernig “ready to resign”. Such "provocations" against an ethnic group would have "lost nothing in a democracy", but "unfortunately [...] with the Freedom Party since the Haider tradition."

Aleksander Geržina , the Slovenian ambassador in Vienna, said: "Dobernig and his combat troops are spreading the ideas of a mass movement that was successful in the 1930s". Thereupon the FPK boss Kurt Scheuch demanded an immediate apology from the ambassador and declared him ready to resign, the comparison with a party from the thirties was “probably the greatest cheek an official representative of another country can afford to the party with the strongest vote in Carinthia . "

Several Austrian media mocked his statements and his complaint that "[m] an [...] already has the impression that there are more Slovenes living in Carinthia than real Carinthians" about the northern Slovenian origin of Dobernig's family name.

Gernot Darmann , FPK club chairman, replied to the criticism from the media that Dobernig's statements had been misreported. The rumored statement that members of the ethnic group are not real Carinthians was never made. The media researched poorly or not at all, and apart from the Kleine Zeitung no medium was present. In any case, there was no violation of the ethnic group. Rather, Dobernig admonished radical Slovenian officials who would continue to raise new and excessive demands even after the local sign was removed. This contrasts with a portrait in the Kleine Zeitung, in which the statement that Dobernig does not consider Carinthian Slovenes to be "real Carinthians" is explicitly repeated.

The Carinthian governor Gerhard Dörfler (also FPK ) contradicted Dobernig. The place-name sign is not a 'gateway drug', but rather “signals the middle of the bridge. I would like to apologize to the ethnic group. "

Criminal proceedings

Conviction for infidelity

On October 22, 2015, the Economic and Corruption Prosecutor announced that it had brought charges against Dobernig and an expert witness of breach of trust. He was charged with contributing to the infidelity in the Birnbacher case because he actively participated in the commissioning of additional expert opinions. Dobernig's objection to the indictment was rejected by the Graz Higher Regional Court . The trial began on July 28, 2016 at the Klagenfurt Regional Court . On September 30, 2016, the last day of the trial, Dobernig made a partial confession and was sentenced to two years in prison, eight months of which were unconditional. Dobernig accepted the judgment. The public prosecutor's office also declined to appeal. He was granted an electronic ankle cuff . He began serving the sentence on December 22, 2016. After serving two thirds of his sentence, Dobernig was allowed to take off the ankle bracelet on June 2, 2017.

Brochure Affair

On November 5, 2013, the public prosecutor's office for business and corruption announced that Dobernig, Uwe Scheuch , Gerhard Dörfler and Stefan Petzner were being charged in the so-called "brochure affair" of infidelity . The defendants were accused of using an advertising brochure for Carinthia as a business location in a slightly modified form as the BZÖ's election brochure in the 2009 state election campaign. According to the indictment, the damage is said to have amounted to 219,000 euros. In 2014 the charges were dismissed by the Graz Higher Regional Court after appeals from the defense lawyers. However, after obtaining an opinion from the expert Georg Jeitler, the public prosecutor renewed the indictment, as announced on November 2, 2015. This became final, as the appeals of the accused were rejected by the Graz Higher Regional Court this time. Dobernig pleaded guilty to the trial, which began on January 17, 2017 at the Klagenfurt Regional Court. He was sentenced to an additional four months of conditional imprisonment on March 16, 2017. Dobernig accepted the judgment and described the sentence as appropriate. A hearing before the Supreme Court took place on April 19, 2018 with regard to the entitlement to private parties. The appeal on the private law claims was followed and the private parties referred with their claims on the civil law route.

Campaign infidelity

On December 13, 2018, it became known that Dobernig had to answer again in February 2019 in criminal proceedings for breach of trust before the Klagenfurt Regional Court. He was accused of having the State of Carinthia pay for scarves in the BZÖ design worth 26,000 euros in the 2009 state elections . During the trial on March 1, 2019, Dobernig made a confession. He was conditionally sentenced to an additional month's sentence. He also has to repay the damage of 26,000 euros within two weeks. Dobernig and the Economic and Corruption Prosecutor's Office waived legal remedies, which made the judgment final.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Party history of the "Freedom in Carinthia" ( Memento of the original from February 9, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / freiheitliche-ktn.at
  2. ↑ Dobernig waived, FPK club status saved. In: derstandard.at . March 25, 2013. Retrieved March 25, 2013 .
  3. ^ Ex-Provincial Councilor Dobernig sues the Carinthian FPÖ for € 200,000. In: diepresse.com . April 16, 2019, accessed April 16, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b Ex-Provincial Councilor Dobernig sues FPÖ. In: ORF . August 23, 2019, accessed August 25, 2019 .
  5. ^ Ex-Provincial Councilor Dobernig sued the FPÖ. In: ORF. April 16, 2019, accessed April 16, 2019 .
  6. ^ Statement of the FPÖ Carinthia in the matter of Mag. Harald Dobernig. In: OTS broadcast of the FPÖ Carinthia. April 16, 2019, accessed April 16, 2019 .
  7. ^ FPK-Finanzlandesrat Dobernig: Carinthian Slovenes are not "real Carinthians". In: derstandard.at . October 7, 2012, accessed October 7, 2012 .
  8. ^ FPK regional council railed against Carinthian Slovenes . In: diepresse.com . October 7, 2012, accessed October 7, 2012 .
  9. ^ ORF report: Indignation: Dobernig rows back In: orf.at of October 7, 2012.
  10. ↑ Andrea Bermann, APA report: Resignation requests after verbal attack ( Memento from December 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: kleinezeitung.at from October 7, 2012.
  11. ^ ORF report: FPK-Dobernig: Slovenes are not “real Carinthians” In: orf.at of October 7, 2012.
  12. ↑ a b Slovenian ethnic group, according to Dobernig, no "real Carinthians" . In: Wiener Zeitung of October 8, 2012.
  13. ↑ Carinthian Provincial Council: Slovenes are not "real Carinthians" - Dörfler apologizes for Dobernig . In: Wiener Zeitung of October 8, 2012.
  14. ↑ a b Dörfler apologizes. In: derstandard.at . October 19, 2012. Retrieved October 19, 2012 .
  15. ^ Rainer Schüller: Dobernig is Northern Slovenian In: Der Standard, October 8, 2012
  16. ^ Place-name signs as a "gateway drug": criticism of Dobernig . In: Salzburger Nachrichten of October 7, 2012.
  17. ↑ Dober dan, Mr. Dobernig . In: Die Presse of October 9, 2012.
  18. ↑ APA report: FPK-Darmann: Dobernig statements are constantly reported incorrectly! . In: ots.at of October 10, 2012.
  19. ^ Antonia Gössinger: Harald Dobernig, Finanzlandesrat, in portrait. In: Small newspaper . October 8, 2012, accessed October 26, 2012 .
  20. ^ Accusation of unfaithfulness against Harald Dobernig. In: orf.at. October 22, 2015, accessed October 23, 2015 .
  21. ^ Indictment against Carinthian ex-politician Dobernig. In: Small newspaper. October 22, 2015, accessed October 23, 2015 .
  22. ^ The indictment against Dobernig is final. In: orf.at. April 1, 2016, accessed April 1, 2016 .
  23. ^ Causa Birnbacher: Dobernig trial on July 28th. In: orf.at. July 7, 2016, accessed July 7, 2016 .
  24. ^ Dobernig: Two years imprisonment. In: orf.at. September 30, 2016, accessed September 30, 2016 .
  25. ^ Eight months of unconditional imprisonment for Harald Dobernig. In: Small newspaper. September 30, 2016, accessed September 30, 2016 .
  26. ^ Final judgment: eight months of unconditional imprisonment for Harald Dobernig. In: Small newspaper. October 5, 2016, accessed October 5, 2016 .
  27. ^ Ankle cuff for ex-FPK Provincial Councilor Dobernig. In: ORF. January 3, 2017, accessed January 3, 2017 .
  28. ↑ Ex-politician Harald Dobernig is loose ankle chains. In: ORF. June 26, 2017. Retrieved June 27, 2017 .
  29. ↑ Harald Dobernig has lost his ankle cuffs. In: Small newspaper. June 26, 2017. Retrieved June 27, 2017 .
  30. ↑ Infidelity and bribery: charges against ex-FPK head. In: orf.at. November 5, 2013, accessed November 5, 2013 .
  31. ^ BZÖ election brochure: Further investigations are necessary . August 26, 2014. Retrieved August 24, 2015.
  32. ↑ Wolfgang Rössler: This report supports charges against Carinthian BZÖ politicians | NZZ . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . May 19, 2017, ISSN  0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed on August 6, 2018]).
  33. ^ Charges against the BZÖ election campaign brochure. In: orf.at. November 2, 2015, accessed November 2, 2015 .
  34. ^ BZÖ election brochure: Fixed charges . May 24, 2016. Retrieved May 25, 2016.
  35. ↑ Trial against Scheuch, Dörfler and Dobernig starts on January 17th . December 6, 2016. Retrieved December 7, 2016.
  36. ↑ Campaign brochure: Dobernig confesses . January 23, 2017. Retrieved March 16, 2017.
  37. ↑ Four convictions in the BZÖ process . March 16, 2017. Retrieved March 16, 2017.
  38. ↑ Dörfler and Scheuch fight against judgments . March 22, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
  39. ↑ Appointment notice: Public hearing in the criminal case against Stefan P, Gerhard D, DI Uwe S and Mag. Harald D. (No longer available online.) In: Supreme Court. March 23, 2018, archived from the original on March 28, 2018 ; accessed on March 28, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ogh.gv.at
  40. ^ OGH confirms the convictions against Gerhard D. and DI Uwe S. In: OGH. April 19, 2018. Retrieved April 20, 2018 .
  41. ↑ Ex-politician Dobernig for infidelity in court. In: orf.at. December 13, 2018, accessed December 13, 2018 .
  42. ↑ Former Carinthian Provincial Councilor has to go to court again. In: Small newspaper. December 13, 2018, accessed December 13, 2018 .
  43. ↑ Dobernig again convicted of infidelity. In: orf.at. March 1, 2019, accessed March 1, 2019 .
  44. ^ Judgment against ex-Regional Councilor Harald Dobernig is final. In: Small newspaper. March 8, 2019, accessed April 25, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Dobernig, Harald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian politician (FPK), convicted criminal
DATE OF BIRTH 3rd September 1980
PLACE OF BIRTH Klagenfurt