The confessing Walid H. – he got a year and a half probation Photo: Olaf Wagner
By Anne Losensky
Long wait at the office? With 100 euros in cash in hand, everything suddenly runs like clockwork!
The owner of a motor vehicle registration service in Steglitz was convicted because he bribed a Kreuzberg employee in the state office for civil and regulatory affairs so that he could work faster.
Tiergarten District Court. Walid AH (26) admits everything: 162 cases of bribery of a government employee in the years 2017 to 2018. For the accelerated processing of his customer approvals, he paid him 100 euros “express surcharge” each time.
The corrupt man from the office even ends up in jail – if his sentence becomes final. The Tiergarten district court sentenced Özkan G. (30) to two years and seven months in prison in February 2022. When he was exposed, there was a raid with searches in the office and at his home. Several registration services had bribed him.
He made a sleazy profit from the usual weeks of waiting. The corrupt magistrate claimed in court: “The idea of the express surcharge did not come from me, it already existed when I started working there. I let myself be tempted.”
The employee in the motor vehicle registration department immediately lost his job. After that, Walid AH’s registration service didn’t run as smoothly as it used to. That’s why the high school graduate now wants to study business first.
With a year and a half on probation as a punishment for bribing authorities, he got off with a black eye. However, the court also ordered the confiscation of compensation in the amount of 16,200 euros.