BERLIN, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Email exchanges between German far-right party AfD and an officially-independent association had reinforced suspicions that the party has benefited from illegal campaign finance, local media reported Thursday.
German newspapers Zeit and Woz and the German public broadcaster ARD had all run similar stories.
According to the reports, at least one regional AfD branch accepted an offer from the German law and freedom society to receive free copies of its pro-AfD Deutschland-Kurier newspaper ahead of last year's federal elections.
Emails providing evidence of such cooperation obtained by Zeit, Woz and ARD hereby further implicate the AfD party in an ongoing illegal campaign finance scandal which could result in the imposition of hefty fines.
So far, the law and freedom society, which is a close affiliate of the Swiss marketing company Goal AG, has refused to reveal the identity of its financiers.
Although it is illegal for political parties in Germany to accept donations without being aware of the exact source of funds used, several AfD election campaign initiatives have been channeled through the two organizations since 2016.
The administrative office of the German parliament (Bundestag) has recently launched a formal investigation into the matter.
Under German law, illegally-received campaign finance must be forwarded immediately to the office of the president of the federal parliament by the party in question.
Despite previously rejecting accusations of illegal campaign finance, the AfD surprisingly already made a first small transfer of 535,225 euros (629,663 U.S. dollars) to the federal parliament administration in early August, a sum which is equivalent to the value of two specific supportive measures rendered by Goal AG to AfD leader Joerg Moethen.
In earlier bookkeeping reports filed on campaign contributions, the AfD has described the assistance received from Goal AG worth several million euros in total as a "friendship service" which should not be categorized as regular party income.
Back in July, Moethen also claimed contrary to the emails published on Thursday that his party had "never worked together with this (related) law and freedom society".
Speaking to Zeit, Woz and ARD, Sophie Schoenberger, a law professor at the University of Konstanz, described the exchanges as clear evidence for cooperation and illegal in-kind election campaign financing in the shape of thousands of free Deutschland-Kurier copies.
"There is an urgent suspicion that it amounts to an illicit donation," Schoenberger said.
A spokesperson for the administrative office of the German parliament told press on Thursday that it was currently in the process of assessing the new evidence which had surfaced in relation to its probe.
