The statement of the third defendant in the Wirecard trial was intended to answer open questions. However, beyond an apology and attacks on the key witness, it brought little that was decisive.
A little disappointed – that’s how the spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office sums up what she thinks of the statement of the third defendant in the Wirecard trial. The former head of accounting, E., remained silent for 137 days of the trial. Now he is speaking out – and in detail. Two days have been set aside just for the reading of his statement, which is expected to be around 190 pages long. But it doesn’t bring anything significantly new on the first day.
E. began his speech with an apology. He admitted that he had made mistakes that he regretted. But his statements were not a confession. E. denied that he had been part of a criminal gang. He said he had not enriched himself and had always wanted the best for the company. He also denied responsibility and authority in many areas. And ultimately, he was not an accountant, stressed E., who originally studied landscape architecture and only later took a postgraduate course in economics.
“Hate” and “zeal for incrimination”
E., on the other hand, sharply attacked the prosecution’s co-accused, Oliver Bellenhaus: The manager, who largely admits the charges and whose testimony incriminates E. and the former Wirecard boss Markus Braun, is “good at lying and twisting things,” he said in the course of his self-written statement. E. attributed his co-accused’s “hatred” and “zeal to incriminate” to the fact that he was jealous of his title and salary. He also “annoyed” him with his requests for evidence – probably also because Bellenhaus then had to forge it. Overall, he had the impression that the manager was a mess. In addition, the two of them repeatedly clashed.
E. describes his own role as that of a manager who was overwhelmed with too much work. “I had a lot of issues 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 did not have 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
However, E. also blames poor technology and a lack of employees for the excessive demands. “It was 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. only commented indirectly on the third-party business, which played a central role in the collapse of Wirecard. However, he had already limited 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 a desk” at Wirecard.
However, E. emphasized that he had commissioned employees to deal with the third-party business. He sees this as a counter-argument to the accusation that he formed a gang. If that had been the case, he would have tried to keep employees away from the issue.
Braun’s defense sees itself vindicated
The defense of former Wirecard boss Braun was satisfied with the statement. It supported the statements of her client. It was clear that two defendants were telling the truth and one was not, she said, referring to Braun and E. or Bellenhaus.
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 damage runs into the billions. 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 going on since December 2022, E. has so far remained silent. Braun denies all allegations, the confessed Bellenhaus appears as a key witness and accuses the two co-defendants.
Who was the perpetrator, who was the victim?
Former CEO Braun has already stated several times that the company’s business – and the billions in sales – were not invented, but real. According to his account, the missing sales director Jan Marsalek, Bellenhaus and other accomplices were the real fraudsters who stole billions from the company and diverted them to their own accounts.
The court has already scheduled trial days until shortly before Christmas. A very important witness has yet to be heard: insolvency administrator Michael Jaffé. In his research, he has so far found no trace of the missing billions, of whose existence Braun is convinced.
Source: Stern
