In the fraud trial surrounding the Wirecard bankruptcy, the third defendant has broken his silence. He admitted mistakes and apologized, but denied responsibility in many places.
On the 138th day of the trial, the third defendant in the Wirecard case broke his silence. The head of accounting, E., admitted at the beginning of his two-day statement that he had made mistakes that he regretted and for which he wanted to apologize. However, he also emphasized that he had not enriched himself personally and had always wanted the best for the company. In addition, he had only dealt with many things very briefly and had relied on the specialist departments.
“I had a lot of topics on the table and felt like a juggler who was completely occupied with making sure no ball fell down,” said E., describing his work. He had not had time to deal with the individual balls in more detail. Today, however, he realizes that he should have stopped and done so.
Not the strength to question everything
Overall, E. painted a picture of poor staffing, poor processes and an overwhelming workload. “It was actually always the case that two people wanted something from me at the same time,” he said, describing his typical working day. There was a lot of time pressure, especially when it came to the annual financial statements. “You don’t have the time or the energy to question everything. That’s what the specialist department is for,” said E. You have to be able to trust their information. Often, their answers were just passed on to the auditors. “If they were happy with it, we were too.”
E. did not initially comment on the third-party business, which played a central role in the collapse of Wirecard. However, he did limit expectations at the beginning of his statement. This was not the focus of his work, and he only had a lot of information about it from hearsay. He could only talk about “many years at his desk” at Wirecard.
The payment service provider Wirecard went bankrupt in June 2020 because 1.9 billion euros booked in trust accounts could no longer be found. The prosecution accuses the three defendants, as well as the former sales director Jan Marsalek, who has disappeared, and other accomplices of simply inventing sales in the billions in order to keep the actually loss-making DAX group afloat. In the trial, which has been ongoing since December 2022, E. has so far remained silent. Braun has denied all allegations, while Bellenhaus, who has confessed, is acting as a key witness and accusing the two co-defendants.
Source: Stern
