The current Austrian government is a conservative coalition between the ÖVP [Österreichische Volkspartei, Austrian People’s Party] and the FPÖ [Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, Austrian Freedom Party]. Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the FPÖ, serves as vice-chancellor under Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
The Austrian security and military services checked the office and found two bugs. There is no indication so far as to who may have wanted to wiretap him.
According to information obtained by krone.at, the perpetrator or perpetrators in Dietrichstein Palace, Minoritenplatz may not have stolen anything during the break-in.
A few days earlier security experts had found and removed two bugs from Strache’s office, and security services are not ruling out a link between the break-in and the surveillance equipment found.
The electronic surveillance devices were discovered last week behind a mirrored wall during a routine check after moving into new offices.
Who is behind this and who wanted to wiretap the Vice Chancellor? These two questions are currently being posed not only by the FPÖ, but also by the military intelligence services and investigators of Domestic Security.
So far it is certain that there are clear signs of a burglary in the FPÖ leader’s office in Dietrichstein Palace, but apparently nothing has been stolen.
Incidentally, the perpetrator almost got caught, when around 7pm, the vice-chancellor’s employees heard noises coming from his office.
When they checked, they noticed someone fleeing through the emergency exit. According to Reuters, a criminal inquiry has been launched, prosecutors confirmed on Thursday.
Dietrichstein Palace has an electronic security system, but due to a moving operation in the Palace, the doors had been left open for a while and the system had been disabled, so the perpetrator could have gained entrance to the building.
Strache was out for dinner, his spokesman said, confirming an earlier report by broadcaster Oe24.
A dental technician by trade, Strache has been instrumental in rebuilding the FPÖ. He hails from Vienna.
“Strache did a phenomenal thing: He brought his party back from the dead,” Cas Mudde, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, in the US, told Politico.
Freedom Party aides often sport scar marks on their cheeks – picked up through membership of Burschenschaften, or “fighting fraternites” whose initiation ceremonies include fencing without masks. Roughly 160 Burschenschaften exist today in Germany and Austria.
The leftists and globalists have repeatedly tried to get rid of Strache, while their candidate, President Alexander van der Bellen, has forced Strache to make commitments to the EU, against his party’s policy.
On Friday, leftists were expected to stage a protest against a ball hosted by the FPÖ in Vienna’s imperial-era Hofburg Palace.
The Vienna Israelite Community [Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien] said earlier on Thursday that it would boycott a parliamentary Holocaust commemoration event because of the FPÖ’s presence in government.