BRUSSELS, January 15 - RAPSI, Alexander Shishlo. A court in Vienna has found Ernst Strasser, former Austrian interior minister and a former member of the European Parliament, guilty of corruption and has sentenced him to four years in prison, according to reports by Radio Television Belge Francophone (RTBF).

In 2011, three members of the European Parliament handed in their resignations after Britain's Sunday Times accused them of corruption.

Journalists of the paper claimed to be lobbyists on several occasions and offered the MEPs 100,000 euros for proposing amendments to certain documents which the European Parliament was currently considering.

The prosecutor's office in Vienna then held a 14 month investigation into Strasser's case.

The anti-corruption department of Romania's General Prosecutor's Office announced last July that it was opening a case against Strasser's former colleague, Adrian Severin, on suspicion of forging documents and causing the European Parliament damages amounting to upwards of 436,000 Euros.

In June 2011, the European Parliament voted to strip Severin's parliamentary immunity on suspicion of corruption.

He had already been expelled from the centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) political bloc, the second largest in the European Parliament.

Ernst Strasser and former Foreign Minister of Slovenia Zoran Thaler have also been excluded from the bloc.