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16. 03. 10. - 11:00

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16. 03. 10. - 11:00

Fraudster Kretschmer in wheelchair 'for the rest of his life'

Former Salzburg Easter Festival (Osterfestspiele) technical director Klaus Kretschmer will be a paraplegic for the rest of his life, say doctors at Salzburg provincial hospital.

In an official statement today (Tues) doctors said Kretschmer, 49, would have to spend the rest of his life in a  wheelchair and could not yet be questioned by police in the wake of his attempted suicide at the beginning of February.

Kretschmer jumped off a bridge over a highway and sustained extremely serious injuries.

Audit Service Austria recently found Kretschmer solely responsible for embezzlement of up to 800,000 Euros from the Festival since 2006.

Salzburg Social Democratic (SPÖ) Governor Gabi Burgstaller, who chairs the committee responsible for the Festival, said last month that the damage caused by Kretschmer, who was summarily fired on 22 January 2010, had amounted to between 500,000 and 800,000 Euros.

She added that the audit had found that Kretschmer had pocketed at least 487,112 Euros of Festival money "without permission" and the amount might be much higher since the auditor had examined the books only going back to 2006. It also found he had held another job without the knowledge of his Festival employers.

She said that Audit Service Austria would extend the audit back to 2001, when Kretschmer had been hired.

Austrian Times

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