BERLIN
Prominent German politician Sebastian Edathy, renowned for fighting against far-right organizations in Germany, is to stand trial early next year on charges of possessing pornographic pictures and videos of children.
The regional court of Verden on Tuesday approved an indictment against former lawmaker Edathy - who rose to prominence in 2012 as the chair of a special parliamentary committee investigating murders by violent far-right group the National Socialist Underground, or NSU - and announced that the proceedings would start on February 23.
Edathy, who is of Indian origin, has denied claims by German prosecutors that he possessed illegal child pornography.
The former Social Democrat parliamentarian accused prosecutors and police of deliberately leaking information to the media during a 10 months-long investigation, arguing they had sought to destroy his credibility and reputation.
However the court concluded after a four-month-long review of the indictment that there was enough evidence to proceed with the trial.
Internet evidence
Edathy is accused of possessing an illustrated book and a CD with child pornographic content.
According to indictment, Edathy also used a laptop given to him by the Federal Parliament to download child pornographic images and video files between November 1 and 10 last year.
The evidence presented to the court includes information saved on the Internet servers of the Federal Parliament, according to local media reports.
Edathy resigned his seat in parliament on February 7 for unspecified health reasons.
He is believed to be outside Germany and posting statements on his Facebook account.
In February, he posted on Facebook that he had received death threats following the accusations and told local press that he was not planning to return to Germany.
Prison penalty
The politician has consistently denied the allegations of possessing child pornographic images, but admitted in an interview with Der Spiegel weekly on February 16 that he had purchased some material from a Canadian firm, which was later investigated for child pornography.
Edathy stressed that the material he purchased was "unambiguously legal".
Possession of child pornography is punishable in Germany with sentences of up to two years in prison.
The NSU group is alleged to have murdered eight small-business proprietors of Turkish origin, a German policewoman and a Greek immigrant between 2000 and 2007.
An August 2013 report by the committee concluded that the spree went undetected because security services had made scores of errors in its enquires - initially assuming a Turkish gang was behind the killings.
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