Hubert Aiwanger, deputy premier of the German state of Bavaria and leader of the Free Voters party, was found dead in a Berlin hotel room on Wednesday evening. He was 55.
German police have opened an investigation, the Daily Mirror reported, carrying a dispatch from the UK outlet The Independent.
Aiwanger, who served as economy minister in Germany’s largest state, had been due to speak at the opening of an office for his party but missed the occasion because he felt unwell, the German outlet Bild reported. He was found at the Hotel Neuer Fritz in central Berlin, where police cars and several state government vehicles were seen that evening.
The investigation
“The aim of the inquest is to establish the specific cause of death and the circumstances surrounding it, and to rule out any possible third-party culpability,” Berlin police and prosecutors said in a joint statement, giving no further detail.
The Berlin public prosecutor’s office told Bild there is “no initial suspicion of a crime” but that “nothing can be ruled out”. The outlet reported that the body bore no external injuries.
After he reported being unwell, staff believed he might have an infection, while members of the CSU parliamentary group said he had been experiencing gastrointestinal problems.
Reaction
“The sudden death of Hubert Aiwanger is a terrible tragedy. We are all deeply shocked,” Bavarian Premier Markus Söder said in a statement published on the state government website. “Our thoughts are first and foremost with his family and his children. We mourn with them and pray for them.” The regional government said it “mourns” the loss.
Background
Aiwanger joined the Free Voters in 2002 and first became a member of the county council in Landshut in 2004. He was elected federal chairman of the party in 2010, and in 2014 the party sent its first MEP, Ulrike Mueller, to the European Parliament. The Free Voters of Bavaria have governed in coalition with the conservative Christian Social Union since 2018.
He had two children with his long-term partner Tanja Schweiger, a state administrative official.
Sourcing note
This desk could not locate the event on any second verified newsroom. Al Jazeera and CNN had no coverage at the time of writing, and international outlets carrying it — among them Gulf News, Malay Mail, Saudi Gazette and TRT World — fall outside this desk’s verified list. The account above rests on a single verified source, the Daily Mirror, reproducing an Independent dispatch that in turn credits Bild for several specifics. Readers should treat the hotel name, the absence of external injuries and the health details as single-chain reporting.
