Austrian strongman found dead after reception at Hungarian embassy in Vienna

Christian Pilnacek was once considered Austria’s most powerful official and one of its most brilliant lawyers. However, a few years ago, he was accused of shady dealings. Although the proceedings were dropped, the life of Pilnacek, former State Secretary of the Austrian Ministry of Justice, took a dark turn. According to Austrian press reports, Pilnacek was found dead after attending a reception at the Hungarian Embassy in Vienna on Thursday evening. You can also find his last SMS he sent before his death below.

Background story

According to Blikk, the 60-year-old Christian Pilnacek was Austria’s most powerful judicial official until recently. He became a judge in 1992 and a prosecutor general in 2001. Since 2010, he had been in charge of prosecutors’ offices as head of the Criminal Law Department of the Ministry of Justice. Pilnacek was the father of the reform of the Austrian Code of Criminal Procedure.

In 2019, his career ended. His former justice department was disbanded, he was prosecuted for abuse of office, and he was thrown out of the ministry. The proceedings, in which he was accused of leaking official secrets, were dropped. Before that, Pilnacek was considered to be a sociable man and a regular in Vienna’s bars. However, the case consumed Pilnacek, who could never process removed from his ministry, Kronen Zeitung writes.

The deadly evening

On Thursday evening, Pilnacek attended a private event. He was the guest of a family dinner at an elegant Italian restaurant in downtown Vienna. This was followed by another event, as the man was invited to a reception at the Hungarian Embassy in Vienna, according to Austrian newspapers.

Shortly before 10 PM on Thursday evening, he was already in the car, driving, alone in the vehicle. He was driving on the A22 motorway along the Danube in Austria, the road leading to Lower Austria. But on the S5 motorway in Stockerau, he drove the wrong way up against the traffic. He was probably on his way home to the Krems district, but missed the exit from the motorway. A police patrol stopped him.

Licence taken away, his last SMS

As Blikk put it, at 22:15, the final act of the man’s tragedy began. The police probed him and found him to be drunk. His driving licence was taken away. According to oe24.at, he was taken to the police station, from where he was taken away by someone else in a car. Shortly afterwards, the 60-year-old lawyer was found dead in the Krems district. The circumstances of his death are still under investigation.

He leaves behind a wife and three children. According to oe24.at, before his death he sent a text message to a friend saying “I can’t do this anymore”.

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