After two and a half years, the fraud process involving beautified emissions from Audi engines is coming to an end – defenders and defendants have the last word.
In the Munich Audi trial, the defense attorneys for former CEO Rupert Stadler and the two co-defendants have begun their closing arguments. First, the lawyers for the accused engineer P. demanded a suspended sentence of well under two years. Your client was forced to participate in the exhaust gas tricks in diesel cars because his superiors had given him specifications that he could not meet.
His early confession contributed significantly to the enlightenment. The detention as well as the length and costs of the two-and-a-half-year process had weighed heavily on him, said the engineer’s defense attorneys in front of the district court. They sharply criticized the public prosecutor’s office: they had taken over questionable investigation results from US attorneys during the investigation. The US took advantage of the diesel scandal to benefit their own auto industry.
Stadler and the former head of Audi engine development and later Porsche board member Wolfgang Hatz have also confessed to the diesel fraud. The Economic Criminal Court has given all three defendants a suspended sentence of between one and a half and two years, combined with monetary conditions. The Economic Criminal Court wants to announce its verdict on Tuesday in a week.
Source: Stern
