Question juridique clé
Whether costs of a discontinued investigation may be charged to the criminal complainant under § 32 Abs. 2 StPO.
Solution extraite
Costs may be imposed on the complainant only if the complaint was filed in a culpable manner, in particular if it was knowingly untrue or excessive; this was the case here.
Motifs extraits
Unlike the complainant in request-offence cases, the criminal complainant must have acted not only as a factual cause of the proceedings but also culpably. The complainant has a duty to check the suspicions and circumstances before filing, though no full factual investigation is required. A mere possible suspicion is not enough; a reasonable basis is required. The chamber found that the appellant had knowingly filed a false complaint.