Germany's opposition Christian Democrat party has suffered another blow with the admission of serious financing irregularities by a former cabinet minister - adding to the scandal surrounding former Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

	Reputation at risk The scandal so far The unification chancellor

Manfred Kanther - Mr Kohl's interior minister until the CDU's 1998 election defeat - said millions of marks in party funds had been transferred abroad when he was the party's regional leader in Hesse in the 1980s.

He said DM7m ($3.6m) had been invested on foreign stock markets, where it appreciated to DM17m ($8.8m).

The party later secretly transferred the money back to Germany, failing to declare the cash movements in its accounts - in apparent violation of party financing laws.

"There is no way to make this look good," Mr Kanther told a news conference after briefing regional party leaders.

Mr Kanther said he had not told his successor - Hesse CDU state premier Roland Koch - about the financial movement.

Mr Koch said: "This is a heavy blow for the Hesse CDU. It will without doubt lead to a loss of confidence which we will have to work hard to win back."

Biggest sums

Mr Kanther's revelations, although only affecting a regional CDU branch, involve the biggest sums yet in a scandal which has ballooned since Mr Kohl last month admitted accepting some DM2m ($1.03m) in donations, and not declaring them or naming their sources.

The CDU's current leader, Wolfgang Schaeuble, has admitted accepting a donation of about DM100,000 ($52,000) from arms dealer Karl-Heinz Schreiber in 1994, and not declaring it - although he blamed party officials for failing to do so.

Mr Schreiber is currently fighting extradition from Canada on suspicion of tax evasion.

Summons

For his part, Mr Kohl has been formally summoned to appear before a parliamentary inquiry, where he will be asked whether he sold favours during his 16 years in power.

He has said he would like to testify as soon as possible, a request strongly backed by the CDU as it tries to reverse its plunge in opinion polls ahead of key regional elections this spring.

But Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats, who chair the parliamentary committee set up after Mr Kohl's admission, say they will not be rushed.

The inquiry committee, which will sit to determine its schedule next Wednesday, also called for government papers on the sale of armoured cars to Saudi Arabia in 1991 and of the East German oil refinery Leuna and the Minol petrol station chain to France's Elf Aquitaine.

There have been allegations of bribery in both cases.