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Dieselgate Trial Courtroom: "Unacceptable" Practice
Photo: FABIAN BIMMER / AFP
In the first major fraud case involving the diesel affair at Volkswagen, the defense thwarted the court's plans to speed up the proceedings.
With several applications, the lawyers vehemently defended themselves on Thursday in the Braunschweig district court against the planned questioning of public prosecutors as witnesses.
The defense attorney for an accused ex-top manager also accused the prosecutors of an "unacceptable" approach.
She said, "Witnesses have been put under undue pressure."
Judge Christian Schütz admitted that the planned continuation of the process was done for the time being.
"What should I say to that?" asked the chairman.
Because 34 of 38 key witnesses had exercised their right to remain silent, the court now wanted to question certain public prosecutors who had previously questioned those witnesses as part of the investigation.
A number of the witnesses called so far are indicted themselves in follow-up proceedings to deal with the VW diesel affair.
In the main hearing with four accused ex-executives, they do not have to appear as witnesses.
The Criminal Court wanted to resolve this impasse with the new approach of allowing individual prosecutors to report on their own important witness hearings.
A defense attorney also accused the public prosecutor's office 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The lawyer suggested that representatives of the public prosecutor's office be withdrawn from the proceedings.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.
mike/dpa