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Audi and the diesel scandal: How Stadler's defender wants to overturn the process

2020-10-06T18:00:06.977Z


The first German criminal case in the diesel scandal could take an abrupt turn: The lawyer for ex-Audi boss Stadler attacks the public prosecutor and questions the entire process.


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Defendant Stadler (.l) and defender Pfordte

Photo: Sebastian Widmann / Getty Images

Public prosecutor Dominik Kieninger does not have a reputation for being easily impressed.

In the preliminary investigation against ex-Audi boss Rupert Stadler and three engineers of the group, he went down hard on the matter, the result was a 92-page indictment for the involvement of the men in the diesel exhaust scandal.

But on this Tuesday afternoon, the chief investigator looks like a boxer who has got the right hook on the skull and has to shake himself first.

He sees a certain need for objectification and asks that you "take a deep breath and give your opinion tomorrow," he says.

Stadler's defender Thilo Pfordte struck him.

The audience experienced a process morning that brought much that was to be expected.

The defenders of the engineers Wolfgang Hatz, Giovanni Pamio and L., who were accused with Stadler, had made their opening statements and specified the lines of battle: the two confessed technicians, who were further down the hierarchy, on the one hand - against the former Chief Development Officer Wolfgang Hatz on the other , who denies any guilt, but in the opinion of the defense lawyers of Pamio and L., however, directed the exhaust fraud with other superiors.

One accusation after the other against the public prosecutor

So far, so manageable.

But then came Pfordte.

Shortly after the lunch break, with a stack of papers in his hand, he stood up in his seat across from the judge Stefan Weickert and with a booming voice he fired one accusation after the other at the prosecutor Kieninger.

The preliminary investigation against Stadler was not fair and the legal proceedings that have now begun will probably not be either, he said.

The public prosecutor's office disregarded the ex-auto boss's fundamental rights enshrined in the human rights convention and violated the code of criminal procedure several times.

Of course, this is part of the ritual of large criminal proceedings, you try to take the wind out of the sails of the public prosecutor right from the start, and Pfordte is not only an accomplished lawyer, but also masters the relevant litigation rhetoric.

But the Stadler defense attorney and his colleague Ulrike Thole then performed one point after the other for more than an hour in which he considered the prosecution's approach to be questionable.

He initially denounced telecommunications surveillance, "one of the most massive conceivable encroachments on a person's personal rights," said Pfordte.

With the measure, the investigators had approached Stadler shortly before his arrest, from Pfordte's point of view with flimsy justification and solely with the aim of getting the then Audi boss into custody.

"Already in difficulties"

The following criticisms of the Stadler defense lawyers could have more consequences for the progress of the proceedings: The bottom line is that they are of the opinion that Stadler does not belong in court because the public prosecutor's office is turning things upside down and bringing together people and facts in the indictment, that didn't belong together.

The charge is "already in trouble".

In fact, the investigators accuse the three accused engineers of having been directly involved in the exhaust gas manipulation.

Stadler, on the other hand, is said to have only found out about the matter after the diesel scandal at VW broke out in September 2015 and then - according to the allegation - not properly clarified and allowed the sale of manipulated cars in Europe against better knowledge.

Pfordte and Thole are of the opinion that in this first case one should first have clarified whether there was any fraud at all, only then should one have turned to Stadler's role.

Or you should have worked out the entire complex and then brought other accused to court at the same time.

For example, Stadler's colleague at the time, Bernd Martens, against whom the investigators are making almost the same allegations as against Stadler, but who will probably have to wait for his trial until the end of this first trial - more than two years.

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Ex-Audi boss Stadler: Separate what you couldn't separate?

Photo: Sebastian Widmann / Getty Images

So you separated what you couldn't separate and mixed up what you should have treated separately.

Stadler's defense attorneys have therefore applied to the court to separate and suspend Stadler's proceedings.

Judge Weickert now has to brood over this.

The Stadler defense attorneys further argue that the trial against the Audi managers could not be carried out in a target-oriented manner without the connections to the proceedings against VW employees - led by the Braunschweig public prosecutor - and those responsible for Porsche (pending at the Stuttgart public prosecutor) consider.

Pfordte therefore applied to consult the extensive files from these parallel proceedings, as well as the files on the fine proceedings against VW and Audi.

So that all of these mountains of paper can be read and evaluated, the defense lawyers requested that the process be interrupted and only be continued after a reasonable period of time.

Political considerations might have played a role

Stadler's lawyers rumbled that they had "the impression that kept coming up that it was either the ultimate goal of the Munich II public prosecutor's office or that they were instructed to name the chairman of the board as the defendant in the first trial."

Political considerations may have played a role, whisper the defenders.

The overall structure of the procedure is "blatantly illegal".

The allegations are serious.

The next few weeks will show whether and what consequences they will have.

In view of this attack, the opening statements by the other lawyers took a back seat.

Walter Lechner actually wanted to set the tone for this second day of the trial.

Lechner is a veteran of the German criminal defense team, he represents the engineer Giovanni Pamio, whom he wrongly sees as the object of a "model trial".

"If someone here belongs in the dock, then it is not Mr Pamio as an individual, but the Audi company," said Lechner, complaining that there is no corporate criminal law in Germany.

The production of a car, argued Lechner, is not the work of one individual, but rather of many.

And that was also the case with Audi and the parent company VW: The decision on the big "Clean Diesel" offensive was a strategic corporate decision, such decisions are made by the board of directors.

And ultimately, as Lechner's remarks can be summarized, the manipulation of the exhaust gas purification was also approved from above, or at least silently approved.

"Silence means consent," said Lechner, and that today it is no longer a question of who knew when, but who did not.

Not a good word for the prosecutor

Similar to Pamio's lawyers, Maximilian Müller, defense attorney for the engineer L .. This had disclosed everything he knew about the exhaust gas manipulation with an open visor very early on. "Large parts of the indictment seem to be based on his statements," says Müller.

94 footnotes with quotations from L. testify to this.

It is remarkable what Müller said about the origins of the scandal.

According to his understanding, there is "no answer to the question of when and by whom exactly the decision to use manipulation software was made".

Rather, the whole thing is the result of a gradual development, because various internal specifications for exhaust gas purification and vehicle performance could not be reconciled.

However, L. had repeatedly pointed out these problems, he himself would explain this in a detailed presentation in front of the court and also show that superiors like Wolfgang Hatz knew about the manipulation.

Its defense attorney Gerson Trüg sharply rejected the allegations.

On the contrary, as long as he was at Audi, Hatz campaigned for a solution to the conflicting goals raised by L's lawyers, for example by advocating shorter refill intervals for the Ad Blue emission control agent.

Like Stadler's defense attorney, Trüg did not have a good word for the public prosecutor's office; he also accuses them of having brought the process wrong and treated his client unfairly.

Prosecutor Kieniger has the chance to strike back on Wednesday.

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Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2020-10-06

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