Austrian court grants former property tycoon Benko's request for house arrest

An Austrian court on Wednesday granted former property tycoon Rene ‌Benko's request to be released from prison to house arrest with an ankle monitor after he served two-thirds of a 30-month sentence for insolvency fraud.

Benko, 49, will now move from prison in his home city of Innsbruck to ‌a roughly 60-square-metre (650-square-foot) apartment that his lawyer Norbert Wess has said has been rented for him in ‌the city so he can better prepare for a fraud trial next month. Benko denies all wrongdoing. Benko has been convicted of insolvency-related fraud in the two cases brought to trial so far stemming from a sprawling investigation into the collapse of the ⁠Signa property ​group he founded. The second ⁠conviction resulted in a suspended sentence.

He remains a suspect in the continuing investigation into a range of potential crimes including ⁠fraud, with prosecutors estimating the total harm caused by Benko and other suspects at €1.5 billion ($1.7 billion). His first two ​trials dealt with sums in the hundreds of thousands of euros. At its peak, Signa controlled all ⁠or part of luxury properties including five-star hotels in Venice and Vienna and the Chrysler Building in New York, as well as ⁠high-end department-store ​chains such as Britain's Selfridges and Switzerland's Globus. Benko became a self-made billionaire.

"It was ordered that investigative detention be continued as electronically monitored house arrest," the court in Innsbruck said in a statement issued ⁠after the closed-door hearing on Wednesday, adding that conditions attached included having no contact with anyone related to Signa. The ⁠next trial Benko ⁠faces is for aggravated fraud and insolvency-related fraud, with prosecutors accusing him of making a false guarantee causing harm of €5 million. The trial is due to be held ‌in Innsbruck ‌next month.

($1 = 0.8925 euros)