A Bit More Detail

Karlheinz Schreiber, the arms lobbyist who figured in a party financing scandal involving former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, arrived in Germany to face criminal charges after being extradited from Canada.

Schreiber, 75, was flown to Munich from Toronto today after losing a 10-year fight to avoid charges of tax evasion, bribery and fraud. He faces as long as 15 years in prison if convicted on all counts, prosecutor Reinhard Nemetz told reporters in the Bavarian city of Augsburg in a televised news briefing.

Schreiber is being held in an Augsburg prison and will be arraigned tomorrow, local judge Herbert Veh told the briefing. While judicial officials will seek a speedy trial, progress depends on “how much he wants to say,” Veh said.

The scandal involved anonymous donations to the Christian Democratic Union when it held power under Kohl between 1982 and 1998. The fraud charges arose from a deal for the sale of 36 German tanks to Saudi Arabia.

While Chancellor Angela Merkel didn’t become party leader until two years after Kohl stepped down, Schreiber’s return quickly became campaign fodder for her political foes contesting national elections in eight weeks.

“We don’t need to do anything” to seek political capital, Franz Muentefering, leader of the Social Democratic Party, told reporters in Berlin today. “The stench isn’t around us, it’s around others.” The Social Democrats are Merkel’s coalition partners and main rivals at the Sept. 27 election.

Kohl admitted in 1999 that he accepted illegal campaign donations when he was chancellor and CDU leader. He refused to reveal the donors, saying he’d promised them confidentiality, and avoided criminal charges by agreeing to pay a fine in 2001.