BERLIN, JANUARY 28: The amount of money in the slush fund scandal of former chancellor Helmut Kohl's Conservative German Party jumped on Thursday, when a state official said his branch had funnelled six million dollars more abroad than previously announced.Roland Koch, head of the scandal-ridden Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Hesse state, told reporters that 19.2 million marks (9.6 million dollars/euros) in party funds had been funneled to Switzerland in 1983. Prosecutors in Frankfurt later raided the city's CDU offices in connection with a judicial investigation into the Swiss funds. Local radio reported that a large number of files were seized during the three-hour raid.Meanwhile, the chairman of the parliamentary committee investigating the slush funds announced that hearings into the scandal would start in March and that a total of 46 witnesses - including Kohl - would be summoned.Uptil now, Koch and his predecessor as Hesse party chief, former interior minister Manfred Kanther, hadadmitted to transfers of seven to eight million marks (3.5 to four million dollars) from Hesse CDU accounts at the Frankfurter Metall Bank in December 1983. Of the 19.2 million marks transferred to Switzerland from these accounts, only 1.5 million were re-deposited in Frankfurt and declared in party finances, said Koch, who has sought over the past weeks to shed light on the scandal over CDU funds.He said that apparently eight million marks of the money transferred had disappeared from 1986 to 1993, adding to four million already announced as missing since 1993. The rest of the money went to private accounts in Switzerland of former CDU accountant Horst Weyrauch, whom the CDU has vowed to sue to reveal what he knows about the scandal over Kohl's running secret funds financed by campaign and other contributions, in violation of German law that donations of over 20,000 marks must be declared.Koch said he had talked about the new money amount with Kanther on Wednesday, as Kanther ran the Hesse CDU in 1983,but that the latter said he did not remember and could not explain what had happened. Kanther is under criminal investigation for the financial dealings in Hesse and has resigned his seat in the national parliament. Kohl is under criminal and parliamentary investigation for his role in running secret national accounts.Meanwhile, the CDU is fighting to survive as a political party. It will learn on February 15 how much they must pay in fines for the illegal party funding. Parliament speaker Wolfgang Thierse, a member of Chancellor Gerhard Shroeder's Social Democratic Party, is responsible for setting the fine and said this week he would announce his decision on February 15.Wolfgang Schaeuble, Kohl's successor as CDU Chief, warned earlier this week that too high a fine could bankrupt the opposition party. "The material foundations of the CDU must not be taken away," he said, insisting that German democracy needed a strong CDU to function.The CDU released an independent audit earlier this week showingthat the party had secretly received some 12 million marks (six million euros/dollars) from donors who Kohl has refused to identify. The party faces a maximum fine of two times the amount of the illegal funds, in addition to having to hand over the donations, meaning Thierse could order a payment of up to 36 million marks. The party faces additional fines for the money held by the Hesse state branch in secret foreign bank accounts.Thierse promised to set the fine "in all required neutrality and fairness and under strict observance of the law". Kohl admitted in November that he had run secret party accounts from 1993 to 1998, setting off a scandal that has spread through the CDU and tarnished Kohl's image as the Chancellor from 1982 to 1998, during which time he presided over the reunification of Germany. Members of th parliamentary delegation investigating Kohl have said he will be called as a witness, but that this might not be for several months.
