AfD welcomes investigation against member of state parliament over forced labor allegations

The Saxon AfD welcomes the public prosecutor's investigation into its member of state parliament Jörg Dornau. For several days now, regional and national media have been reporting that a member of parliament had prisoners working on his farm in Belarus, with individual reports also mentioning forced labor, the AfD state association announced. The public prosecutor's office has now begun preliminary investigations into the case.

AfD: Case must be investigated properly

Dornau runs an onion farm in Belarus. He himself, but also his party, did not respond to inquiries from the dpa news agency about the allegations against him in the past.

AfD General Secretary Jan Zwerg emphasized: "We as the Saxon AfD welcome the fact that this case is now being investigated in a legally clean and fact-based manner. We trust the independent Saxon judiciary." The accusations in the media were largely anonymous, and there were also contradictory reports - in some cases there was talk of forced labor, in others that the prisoners were doing the work voluntarily.

"Until the case is clarified, the presumption of innocence applies to us. We will not comment on any pending proceedings in this case," explained Zwerg. Everything else will be decided by the AfD regional association once the case has been brought to a clean conclusion.

In the summer, the state parliament imposed a fine of 20,862 euros on AfD MP Dornau because, in the view of the presidium, he had breached his duty of disclosure under the Members of Parliament Act. He had not reported his shareholding in an agricultural company in Belarus within the legally prescribed period and had not reported his activities as a director of the company in a timely manner, it said.