Sebastian Kurz (L), leader of the People's Party, and Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of the Freedom Party, attend a press conference in Vienna, capital of Austria, Dec. 16, 2017. The People's Party and the Freedom Party will form a coalition government for the coming five years. Sebastian Kurz will be the chancellor and Heinz-Christian Strache will be the vice chancellor.Photo:Xinhua

Austria's former vice chancellor and longtime leader of the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) stood trial for alleged corruption on Tuesday, in a case linked to a scandal that brought down the government.

One of Europe's most high-profile far-right leaders, Heinz-Christian Strache was forced to resign as vice chancellor in 2019 after the publication of a video that showed him offering public contracts in return for electoral campaign support from a woman posing as a Russian investor.

The scandal, dubbed "Ibiza-gate" as the video was secretly filmed on the Spanish party island, spawned a sweeping corruption investigation which uncovered several different accusations of wrongdoing.

Tuesday's corruption trial concerns charges that Strache helped change a law for an FPOe donor when he was in a coalition government with the center-right People's Party (OeVP) of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

The donor, Walter Grubmueller, owns a private clinic in Vienna and told a parliamentary committee that he had invited Strache aboard his yacht and on a vacation at his holiday home on the Greek island of Corfu in 2016.

While negotiating the coalition agreement with the OeVP, Strache directly asked the clinic owner "which amendment to the law" he would need for his "clinic to finally be treated in a fair manner," according to chat messages uncovered in the investigation and which were later leaked to the media.

In the messages, the donor also reportedly said that he'd deliver a draft law to the FPOe's party headquarters. 

After Strache took office in 2017, the far-right took charge of the health ministry and went on to oversee a change in the law that widened the category of establishments that were eligible for public funding.

According to expert estimates, this means clinics like Grubmueller's were allowed to apply for as much as 2.2 million euros ($2.6 million) in funding in 2019 alone.

Grubmueller has also been charged, but denies any wrongdoing or that he profited from the amendment. 

When the "Ibiza-gate" footage emerged in 2019, the coalition between the FPOe and the People's Party collapsed.

In the video, Strache claimed that several high-profile billionaires and international gambling company Novomatic had been funding political parties through off-the-books donations to associations, some owned by high-ranking OeVP politicians.

All those named by Strache deny any wrongdoing.

The claims triggered an array of investigations, including a probe into the appointment of Thomas Schmid - a civil servant and Kurz ally - as head of the Austrian state holding company OeBAG. 

AFP