Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is facing a judicial rap over his close links to the Russian government, German judicial authorities said Tuesday.
The public prosecutor's office in the northern city of Hanover confirmed to AFP that it had passed on a request to investigate a complaint made against several persons including Schroeder to the federal prosecutor at Karlsruhe, home of the German constitutional court.
Karlsruhe will have to decide whether to open an investigation on human rights grounds. The complaint centres on alleged "crimes against humanity".
Schroeder has come under pressure over his close ties with Moscow and friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
New chancellor and fellow Social Democrat Olaf Scholz last week urged him to quit his posts with Russian energy giants Rosneft and Gazprom following Putin's invasion of Ukraine, saying it was not "correct" to maintain them.
Schroeder, who was Germany's chancellor from 1998 to 2005, is chairman of the board of directors of Russian oil giant Rosneft.
The 77-year-old is also due to join the supervisory board of gas giant Gazprom in June.
The gas group is behind the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia, which has been halted by Scholz in one of the West's first responses to the war in Ukraine.
Schroeder himself signed off on the first Nord Stream in his final weeks in office, and currently heads the pipeline's shareholders' committee.
His refusal to cut his links notably saw Bundesliga football club Borussia Dortmund strip him of his honorary membership.
Other former European leaders including France's Francois Fillon and Italy's Matteo Renzi have laid down Russian posts in contrast.
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ROSNEFT
GAZPROM
BORUSSIA DORTMUND
