Austria’s former chancellor Sebastian Kurz has won his appeal against a conviction for giving false testimony to a parliamentary committee.
The court’s ruling overturns last year’s judgement and eight-month suspended prison sentence for the former political star.
Once hailed a wunderkind of Europe’s conservatives, the 38-year-old resigned as chancellor in 2021 and quit politics amid a series of allegations.
Monday’s acquittal removes a key obstacle to a potential political comeback, but he still faces investigation on separate corruption allegations.
Last year, Kurz was found guilty of perjury for giving false testimony to a parliamentary committee.
The case against him centred over allegations that he had been involved in the selection of executives on a newly-created state holding company when he was chancellor, as opposed to being merely kept informed.
Kurz told a parliamentary probe in 2020 that he was “involved in the sense of informed”. But the first trial judge deemed that declaration false and ruled that Kurz had played a more active role.
However in his appeal Kurz argued that the judge who had convicted him was biased.
The appeal bench of three judges ruled in his favour on Monday, reading out in their judgement that Kurz “was acquitted because the objective offence of giving false evidence was not fulfilled”.
Speaking to reporters outside court on Monday, Kurz said the years of accusations against him had “now all collapsed”.
“There have been numerous court hearings – a huge amount of confrontation with these accusations. You have all witnessed how much this has been celebrated and that it has now all collapsed,” he said.
He has also denied wrongdoing on the corruption allegations for which he is being investigated.
Prosecutors are yet to decide whether to charge him over the allegations that he used public money to pay for favourable media coverage and to fund polls which exaggerated support for him.
Kurz has not publicly voiced an intention to return to politics yet.
Since quitting in 2021, he has been involved in several business ventures including the high-profile Dream cybsersecurity company, which he co-founded in 2023 with partners including the former boss of Israel’s NSO firm that developed the controversial Pegasus spyware product.
Kurz had previously headed the conservative Austrian’s People’s Party, leading the party to victories in 2017 and 2019 on a hardline immigration stance.
The People’s Party is still in charge in Austria after it managed to form a three-party coalition with the Social Democrats and a liberal party after elections last September.
However that vote was won by the far-right Freedom Party, who seized on voter frustrations on the economy and migration. Despite topping parliamentary elections for the first time, they failed to form government.
