A prominent German politician was found dead in a Berlin hotel on Wednesday, police said, adding they had launched an investigation.

Axar.az reports, citing The Guardian, that the cause of death of Hubert Aiwanger, 55, who was deputy leader of southern Bavaria state, was not immediately clear.

Police said in a statement he was “found dead in his hotel room” in the Berlin-Mitte district.

Police and prosecutors had opened a probe to “determine the specific cause and circumstances of death”, the statement said.

“The aim ⁠of the inquest is to establish the ​specific cause of death ‌and the ‌circumstances surrounding it, and to rule out any ‌possible third-party culpability,” police and prosecutors said in a statement. They gave no further details.

Aiwanger, head of the populist Free Voters party and also Bavarian economy minister, was in Berlin to attend the opening of an office for his party but missed the event as he was feeling unwell, the Bild daily reported.

Aiwanger’s party were junior partners in the regional Bavarian government led by Soeder’s Christian Social Union (CSU).

He had headed the Bavarian branch of the Free Voters since 2006. Under his leadership, the party made it into the state government for the first time in 2018, but never won enough seats to qualify for Germany’s federal parliament.