Image: (APA/HELMUT FOHRINGER)
This was announced by authority spokeswoman Nina Bussek on Wednesday afternoon on request. The entire process complex reported is affected by the setting, said Bussek: “The suspicion could not be confirmed by the investigations.”
As a result, the proceedings were discontinued in accordance with Section 190, paragraph 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO), since there is no actual reason for further prosecution of the accused, the spokeswoman explained. On the basis of a complaint filed against Putz, the prosecution had examined possible breaches of trust, forgery of documents and evidence and a possible violation of the Association Responsibility Act.
“Dispute at shareholder level”
Putz and his legal representative Günther Rebisant have scheduled a press conference for the public prosecutor’s decision next Friday. At this meeting they want to express themselves in detail on the matter.
When the public prosecutor’s investigations against Putz became known at the end of March, Lead Horizon had stated in a statement that these did not affect the company: “It is a dispute at shareholder level.” Lead Horizon had already been “examined down to the smallest detail” in this matter by an independent special auditor in 2021, “without any irregularities being brought to light”. The precise examination of the 2021 annual financial statements by KPMG Austria GmbH did not reveal any abnormalities either.
Co-founder with serious allegations
The public prosecutor’s office had called Christoph Steininger, the co-founder of Lead Horizon, who no longer works for the company. He presented a statement of facts in which serious allegations were made against Putz. Among other things, it was alleged that he had withdrawn funds from the company in several cases, thereby damaging other owners and the company. Large-scale conversion work in an office and the awarding of contracts to external consultants were also discussed.
When the virologist Steininger left the company, Putz is said to have taken over its safety agenda, although he is neither a virologist nor a doctor or pharmacologist. This was and is not a problem for Lead Horizon, because the safety officer was not responsible for the development of the medical device or the evaluation of its technical properties in terms of quality and effectiveness, but only for the processing of risk information that had become known. In this respect, Putz met the legal requirements for the safety officer at the time.
Security concerns resolved
The public prosecutor’s office also examined Lead Horizon’s handling of the safety of its own corona tests. When, in mid-2022, consideration was given to saving the buffer liquid in the sample tube with the red cap, virologist Steininger expressed serious doubts at the general assembly. According to the ORF, Steininger feared that the virus stability to be expected would be significantly different if the Gurgelat was spat into phosphate-buffered saline (PBS buffer), saline or an empty tube.
There is “the risk that test results could be ‘false negative’ (ie tested people receive a negative corona test although they are actually positive, note). Serious risks of infection can result from this.” Nevertheless, there was a change. Since January 2023, the tests have no longer been delivered with a complex and expensive PBS buffer, but with a conventional saline solution. According to the company, two million test kits have been delivered since then.
Lead Horizon commented on this last spring: “There was always a buffer solution in the test kit. The stabilization values with the new buffer solution are demonstrably (study results) identical or better.” In the end, the public prosecutor found no evidence that the test kits had led to any criminally questionable activities. All strands of investigation were therefore discontinued for reasons of evidence.
Source: Nachrichten
