Former Austrian leader charged with giving false evidence to an inquiry

BERLIN (AP) — Prosecutors say Austria’s former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has been charged with making false statements to a parliamentary inquiry into a scandal that brought down his first government. An indictment against Kurz, his former chief of staff, Bernhard Bonelli, and another unidentified person was filed at the state court in Vienna, the prosecutors’ office that investigates corruption cases said in a statement. The court said Kurz will go on trial on Oct. 18. The charges result from an investigation that was launched in 2021, when Kurz was still chancellor, and centers on his testimony to a parliamentary probe that focused on alleged corruption in his first government, a coalition with the far-right Freedom Party which collapsed in 2019.