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Hunter Biden: Focus on gun buying

Photo: IMAGO/CNP/ABACA / IMAGO/ABACAPRESS

US President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, has been indicted for illegal possession of weapons. In the indictment brought by a so-called grand jury in the state of Delaware, the 53-year-old is accused of briefly possessing a revolver in 2018, although he was prohibited from doing so as a drug user. Hunter Biden had made false statements to the arms dealer in order to be able to buy the Colt.

The special investigator appointed by the Department of Justice, David Weiss, had previously written in a letter to the court that he was seeking an indictment against the 53-year-old before the end of September. Hunter Biden had actually admitted illegal gun possession and tax offenses in June as part of an agreement with the federal prosecutor's office of the state of Delaware. In return for a guilty plea in both cases, he was to receive only a mild sentence, and he would have been spared a trial.

However, the deal fell through in July after the judge in charge questioned its content. Hunter Biden subsequently pleaded not guilty.

Strain on Joe Biden

Hunter Biden has been a political burden on his father for years – and is likely to become so with a view to the 2024 presidential election. The opposition Republicans accuse the 53-year-old of having exploited his father's important position as vice president of Barack Obama (2009 to 2017) for business in Ukraine and China in the past.

They accuse the Biden family of corruption, which the president firmly rejects. In Congress, Republicans have launched several investigations into Hunter Biden's business activities.

Hunter Biden is a lawyer and worked as a businessman for a long time. He has openly acknowledged that he has suffered from severe drug problems in the past. He has been working as an artist for several years.

The 53-year-old is the president's second son. His older brother, Beau Biden, died of a brain tumor in 2015. Hunter and Beau had survived a serious car accident as children, in which Joe Biden's first wife Neilia and their daughter Naomi died in 1972.

ptz/AFP/Reuters