BERLIN, Nov 4 (Reuters) – German police said they were investigating the sudden death of Hubert Aiwanger, deputy premier of the state of Bavaria and leader of a small conservative party, whose body was found in a Berlin hotel room on Wednesday evening.
“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 statement. They gave no further details.
“The sudden death of Hubert Aiwanger is a terrible tragedy. We are all deeply shocked,” Bavarian Premier Markus Soeder said in a statement published on the state government website.
Aiwanger, 55, who was also Bavaria’s economy minister and leader of the Free Voters party, had been in Berlin for the opening of a party office in the German capital but had missed the occasion after he felt unwell, the Bild newspaper reported.
The Free Voters of Bavaria have been in a coalition with the conservative Christian Social Union in the state since 2018.
(Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by David Gregorio and William Mallard)
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