BERLIN, Oct 23 (Reuters) – Emails from a trove of hacked Alternative for Germany (AfD) accounts appear to contradict the far-right party leader Alice Weidel’s previous statements about an illegal campaign donation, Der Spiegel news outlet reported on Friday.
The findings emerged from a cache of more than 420,000 internal AfD emails published online on Monday, which journalists are still combing through.
The emails, analysed by Der Spiegel, broadcaster ZDF, and Austria’s Der Standard newspaper, suggest Weidel knew of planned donations linked to her 2017 federal election campaign weeks before she has previously said she became aware of them.
According to the report, Weidel told the treasurer at the time in a July 2017 email that she had been notified of donations. However, after the scandal came to light, Weidel said she had first learned about the funds in September of that year and had later advocated for their return, it said.
The payments totalling €132,000 ($147,800) through Swiss intermediaries became one of the most prominent party financing scandals in the AfD’s history.
Parties in Germany are not allowed to receive support from outside the EU, and the AfD was fined €396,000.
The party has said that it will not respond to inquiries on whether emails are genuine, and urged the media to refrain from disseminating content linked to data theft.
An AfD spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the emails concerning Weidel and the donations.
The hackers told Die Zeit newspaper on Thursday that they had published the data, which also includes documents and personal records, in the name of transparency and public accountability. The owners of the website hosting the data did not respond to Reuters’ emailed request for comment.
The leaked data could add fuel to calls by some politicians and civil society groups to ban the party that they argue threatens Germany’s democratic constitutional order.
The AfD, which has topped national opinion polls, rejects that accusation as politically motivated.
The domestic intelligence agency, whose assessments could be used as a basis for any possible ban proceedings, said that as a matter of principle it does not comment on its internal work processes when asked if it planned to investigate the matter.
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(Reporting by Miranda Murray; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
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