Agence France-Presse,
Austria’s air force chief has been suspended over irregularities in a 2003 contract to buy 18 Eurofighters planes, Austria’s Defense Minister Norbert Darabos announced April 10.
Gen. Erich Wolf had not managed to clear up the suspicions that a lobbyist for the plane’s constructor EADS had paid 87,000 euros (117,000 dollars) to a company owned by Wolf’s wife when the contract was being negotiated.
Darabos made the announcement after a private meeting April 10 with Wolf, 58, before the defense ministry’s disciplinary committee.
A parliamentary commission launched by the Social Democrats, the environmental Green party and part of the far-right, has been examining the deal since last October.
The contract was signed with EADS in 2003 by then Austrian chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel.
His successor, Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer, said April 9 that the recent revelations were “to be taken very seriously” and made it more likely that Austria would pull out of or amend the contract.
Gusenbauer, a Social Democrat, made a campaign pledge to scrap the Eurofighter contract worth some two billion euros before his election on October 1.
The left in Austria believe that the purchase of the planes was extravagant for a small, neutral state.
