Kohl to Be Fined For 300,000 MarksFormer German Chancellor Helmut Kohl has agreed to pay fines up to 300,000 Deutsch Marks for his role in a political fund donation scandal, his lawyer Stephan Holthoff-Phoertner said on Thursday.In exchange for the agreement, the state prosecutors in Bonn will cease an investigation of Kohl's possible crime in taking more than 2 million DM of contribution for his Christian Democratic Union from anonymous donators between 1993 and 1998. Kohl has admitted of accepting the money, which was not registered properly, as a breach of law, but he refused to reveal the names of secret donators. The chairman of Bundestag (lower house)'s investigation committee, Volker Neumann, said that to accept the deal means that Kohl loses the right to remain silent and will have to reveal the names. Neumann immediately announced that he would summon Kohl again for testimony and Hans-Christian Stroebele, a member of the committee, said that if Kohl continued his non-cooperation, he could face new penalties. But a Berliner Zeitung's report to be published on Friday quoted people around Kohl as saying that he will probably continue to keep silence. The deal must still be approved by Bonn's state court, which is almost a certain thing, according to local reports. |
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