Wuppertal (dpa / lnw) – The Wuppertal public prosecutor’s office is conducting investigations into insults against the North Rhine-Westphalian AfD member of the Bundestag, Martin Renner. According to the politician, the background is a dispute over a corona protective mask. There were no details from the judiciary, “since the alleged act has no connection with the political activities of the MP,” as senior public prosecutor Wolf-Tilman Baumert clarified on Thursday at the request of the German Press Agency in Düsseldorf. Last week on Thursday, the Bundestag lifted the immunity of the 68-year-old to enable criminal proceedings.
As Renner reported to the dpa, the complaint against him is about an incident from February 2021. At that time he entered a tobacconist’s shop in Haan in the Rhineland with a corona fabric mask and was rebuked by the owner in rude, insulting words that he was a Must wear FFP2 mask. The AfD deputy described the exchange of words as he then threw up his arms defensively and replied that he would never enter this shop again.
14 months later, in April of this year, he received a summons from the Düsseldorf criminal police because a saleswoman who had been in the store with the owner had reported him. Supposedly he “showed the finger”, reported Renner. But this is not the case. Rather, he himself was insulted. Another seven months later, his immunity has now been lifted. Renner sees the process as “politically motivated” and says he has hired a lawyer.