MUNICH (dpa-AFX) - In the Audi trial, the public prosecutor does not see the defendants - who include former company CEO Rupert Stadler - as being primarily responsible for the diesel scandal. It is "at all doubtful" whether in such a complex structure there can even be the main person or persons responsible in criminal terms, "if so many people involved in the company are running in the wrong direction," said prosecutor Nico Petzka at the beginning of his plea on Tuesday in Munich. This must also be kept in mind in the criminal assessment. Petzka had not yet named his own penalty demand by midday on Wednesday. The plea should go only in the afternoon to end.
The prosecution accuses Stadler of having allowed 26,546 defective vehicles to be sold in Germany between December 19, 2015 and November 30, 2017 - with damages of 69 million euros. In the case of co-defendants Wolfgang Hatz and engineer P., the accusation covers a total of 94,924 cars in Germany and the U.S. in the period from late 2008 to November 2015, with damages of 2.2 billion euros. It is so much higher because the public prosecutor's office is only assessing scrap value for the 66,026 U.S. vehicles.
In the trial, which has now dragged on for two years and nine months, all the defendants have now confessed. In the case of Stadler and P., the defendants, the court and the public prosecutor's office reached agreements on the sentences, which include suspended sentences and fines. In the case of Hatz, the public prosecutor's office rejected a corresponding plea agreement. Stadler had long protested his innocence before that. Only in the spring, after a hint from the court that he could face a prison sentence, did he change his position./ruc/DP/ngu
