Been “blind and deaf”?
Wirecard trial: Key witness attacks ex-board member
October 23, 2023, 8:53 p.m
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Harsh tone in the Wirecard fraud trial. The prosecution’s key witness, Bellenhaus, rejects attacks from former CEO Braun’s defense attorneys and goes on the offensive for his part. He asks whether the latter was “deaf and blind” in the company for 20 years.
In the Munich Wirecard trial, the dispute between the prosecution’s key witness and the former CEO Markus Braun has reached its climax. Manager Oliver Bellenhaus, who worked for Wirecard in Dubai until the scandal group collapsed in 2020, defended himself against the allegations made by Braun’s defense lawyers and made serious accusations of his own: “The question arises as to whether Dr. Braun has been deaf and deaf for the last 20 years spent blindly in Wirecard,” said Bellenhaus on the 74th day of the trial.
According to Braun’s defense, sales director Jan Marsalek, who has been in hiding since 2020, Bellenhaus and accomplices are said to have embezzled the two billion euros that the group was actually entitled to through a shadowy network of companies. Braun therefore knew nothing about the activities of this criminal gang in the company.
Bellenhaus, for his part, called this representation “absurd.” “There is no evidence of this,” said the manager, who, like Braun, has been in custody for over three years. “Above all, a war is being waged here over public opinion.” In his statement, Bellenhaus accused Braun’s defense attorneys of having often miscalculated. “What would be the motive for setting up such a shadow structure and keeping it running for over a decade,” said the key witness.
Banks suffer billions in damage
Bellenhaus is the only one of the three defendants to confess. According to the indictment, both Braun and Bellenhaus were members of the Wirecard criminal gang. They are said to have falsified Wirecard’s balance sheets since 2015 and damaged lending banks by 3.1 billion euros.
However, Braun’s defense attorneys deny Bellenhaus any credibility: “A creative series of smokescreens,” said lawyer Alfred Dierlamm after Bellenhaus’ statements. “We will comment on this in detail.” The court’s decision on the Braun defense attorney’s requests for evidence is still pending.