Crime - Court: Wirecard trial extended until December
The Wirecard trial concerning the alleged largest accounting fraud case in German post-war history is dragging on. The Fourth Criminal Chamber of Munich Regional Court I has now scheduled 86 additional trial days until December 19 of this year. This was announced by a court spokesperson on request.
The trial against former CEO Markus Braun, key witness Oliver Bellenhaus and the former chief accountant of the DAX company, which collapsed in 2020, has been running since December 8, 2022. The chamber had originally scheduled 100 trial dates, the last of which would have been January 10 next week. For the time after that, Wednesday and Thursday were scheduled as trial days, but no specific dates were planned in the original ruling.
This is the issue
Wirecard collapsed in the summer of 2020 after auditors were unable to locate 1.9 billion euros that should have been recognized in the balance sheet. According to the indictment, the money never existed. Braun and accomplices are said to have acted as a criminal gang to fake transactions in order to keep the loss-making company afloat.
However, Braun, who was remanded in custody in July 2020 - almost three and a half years ago - has declared his innocence. According to the Austrian manager, the real criminals around the former Chief Sales Officer Jan Marsalek, who has gone into hiding, and the key witness Bellenhaus, are said to have put vast sums of money on the side.
Braun and Bellenhaus are accusing each other, and none of the witnesses heard so far have been able to shed any light on the matter. It remains unclear whether the 1.9 billion euros that have been missing since summer 2020 ever existed - and if so, by whom the funds were ultimately misappropriated. The key witness Bellenhaus, who has also been in custody without interruption since July 2020, denies Braun's accusations.
Clarification difficult
One of the reasons why the investigation is proving so difficult is that the crime scenes were largely located in Asia: in Dubai, Singapore, the Philippines and other Asian countries. The court has summoned numerous witnesses from abroad in recent months, but they have not appeared.
So far, mainly former employees of the former Wirecard headquarters in Aschheim near Munich have testified. However, Braun's former subordinates have all stated that they knew nothing about the billion-euro fraud.
The first witnesses in the new year will now be the former head of the legal department of Wirecard Bank on January 10, followed by a former sales manager the next day.
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- The criminal chamber in Munich, renowned for handling serious cases like the Wirecard trial, operates under the umbrella of the Munich Regional Court.
- The Services provided by the criminal chamber are crucial in overseeing complex processes related to criminality, such as the ongoing Wirecard case.
- In the heart of Bavaria, Munich has been at the center of discussions around finance and criminality, with the Wirecard trial being a significant example.
- Oliver Bellenhaus, a key witness in the Wirecard trial, has been in custody since July 2020, underscoring the gravity of criminal processes in Germany.
- Markus Braun, the former CEO of Wirecard, and Bellenhaus are both from Germany, contributing to the country's post-war history of addressing criminality within large financial institutions.
- Despite the challenges posed by international crime scenes in places like Dubai and Singapore, the Munich Regional Court has sought cooperation from foreign witnesses, preventing the trial from drifting towards a dead-end.
Source: www.stern.de
