The attempt to finally get some speed into the fraud process against former Volkswagen executives has failed for the time being. The process did not come any closer to clarifying “Dieselgate”.
Unusual appointments, countless applications and constant interruptions: In the first major fraud case regarding the diesel affair at Volkswagen, the court’s plans to speed up the proceedings were thwarted on Thursday.
With several applications, defense attorneys in the Braunschweig district court resisted, among other things, the planned questioning of public prosecutors as witnesses. The lawyer for an accused ex-top manager also accused the prosecutors of an “unacceptable” approach. “Witnesses have been put under undue pressure,” she said.
The presiding judge Christian Schütz admitted at the beginning that his planned continuation was done for the time being. “What should I say about that?” He asked those involved in the Braunschweig Stadthalle, where the process was outsourced because of its size. Since 34 of 38 key witnesses had in the meantime exercised their right to remain silent, the court actually wanted to start questioning certain public prosecutor’s office officers who had previously questioned those witnesses as part of the preliminary investigation.
Hanging part should be resolved
A number of the witnesses called so far are themselves accused in follow-up proceedings to deal with the VW diesel affair. You do not have to appear as a witness in the main hearing with four accused ex-executives. The Criminal Court wanted to resolve this impasse by allowing individual prosecutors to report on their own important witness hearings. The chief public prosecutor scheduled for Thursday had to wait several hours outside the door.
Previously, motions and statements took almost the entire day of the hearing. Judge Schütz also made his dissatisfaction with the constant breaks in the proceedings clear. For a request for an interruption, he said: “It was clear that it would come today. We must make progress in this process.” At the beginning of the trial in September, Schütz actually wanted to speed up the process by separating the part of the trial against former VW boss Martin Winterkorn.
Defenders attack prosecutors
Instead, the focus on Thursday was initially on allegations by the defense against the public prosecutor. A defense attorney accused the accusers of “frantic efforts” to persuade potential witnesses to testify. Some have been given the prospect of discontinuing their own proceedings against a fine. The lawyer suggested that representatives of the public prosecutor’s office be withdrawn from the proceedings. A colleague said he wanted to know which witnesses had been offered the prospect of being hired, and under what conditions. The public prosecutor’s office contradicted the accusation of wanting to buy witnesses. There is no wrongdoing.
Judge Schütz made it clear that the chamber would like to be informed about talks on possible closure of the proceedings, because the persons concerned can then again be considered as witnesses. He then called the senior public prosecutor as a witness and had her begin with a report on an interrogation during the investigation. With such statements, the process should now be continued.
However, it also became clear on Thursday that the previous planning up to mid-2023 would not be sufficient. Judge Schütz announced further dates until January 2024.
Source: Stern
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
