LEAD: Police raid home of German president's former spokesman

Jan 19, 2012, 18:09 GMT

Hanover, Germany - Police investigating bribery allegations on Thursday raided the home of a recently dismissed German presidential aide, Olaf Glaeseker, re-igniting a six-week-old scandal involving President Christian Wulff.

Both men have been under fire for accepting free holiday accommodation while Wulff was a state premier and Glaeseker was his spokesman. Prosecutors ruled over recent weeks that there was no evidence of Wulff having committed a crime, but zeroed in on Glaeseker instead.

Battered by the scandal, Wulff earlier apologized for concealing in 2010 a 500,000-euro (640,000-dollar) home loan from the wife of a businessman friend. Last month he dismissed Glaeseker, his spokesman for a decade, without giving any public explanation of why.

The crisis threatens to politically damage Chancellor Angela Merkel, who nominated Wulff, 52, to his mainly ceremonial post. She has repeatedly said she has confidence in him that he will answer all questions posed by the media about his past conduct.

Opposition parties welcomed the inquiry, saying it vindicated their suspicions that the full story had not been told.

Until Thursday, prosecutors had given no clue that they were upgrading their inquiry against 50-year-old Glaeseker and an associate, Manfred Schmidt, into a full-scale corruption investigation.

The allegations centre on public-relations events organized by Schmidt while Wulff was premier of the state of Lower Saxony.

'Based on media reports and inquiries by the Hanover prosecutor's office, there is a suspicion that Olaf Glaeseker favourably facilitated the conduct and financing of the ... events (organized) by Manfred Schmidt or the companies he controlled,' prosecutors said.

'In return, Olaf Glaeseker is alleged to have stayed on multiple free holidays in the holiday home of Manfred Schmidt.'

Prosecutors said the possible charges included taking bribes and giving bribes.

Schmidt earned an income by organizing glittering annual parties in Hanover which were paid for by corporate sponsors and were ostensibly celebrations of industrial links between Lower Saxony and Baden-Wuerttemberg states. German carmaking is based in both.

Police raided homes and offices in Berlin, in a suburb of Hanover and in Switzerland. They seized computer files and papers.

In Hanover, the Lower Saxony state capital, opposition leaders said the inquiry was coming closer to Wulff, who gave up the premiership and moved to Berlin to become president in 2010, taking Glaeseker with him.

'The president ought to be worried that justice authorities have got his former closest aide in their sights,' said Stefan Schostok, Lower Saxony caucus leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Stefan Wenzel, state caucus leader of the Green Party, said, 'This amounts to a new dimension in the misdeeds of former premier Wulff's conduct of office.'

Wulff had appeared this week to have survived the initial scandal, though his popularity has slumped amid perceptions that he was too willing to accept favours from a circle of ambitious entrepreneurs.

The state's ruling Christian Democrats have kept their distance from Wulff as the scandal unfolded.

The state finance minister, Hartmut Moellring, said the state had never supported the 2007-09 'North South Dialogue' social events financially, but he suggested that Wulff as state premier probably leaned on corporate sponsors to inject their own money into them.

'He would have told them, 'This is something important, you ought to chip in',' said Moellring.