Pleas in the Audi trial
Prosecutor demands probation for ex-Audi boss Stadler
06/13/2023, 4:58 p.m
After more than two and a half years of negotiations, the process of manipulated exhaust systems in Audi’s diesel vehicles is entering the home straight. The public prosecutor’s office is now in doubt as to whether there is a person primarily responsible. Too many went in the wrong direction in the group.
In the Audi trial, the public prosecutor’s office demanded two prison sentences with and one without probation. Public prosecutor Nico Petzka in Munich pleaded for two years’ probation and the payment of 1.1 million euros for the former boss of the car manufacturer, Rupert Stadler. For the former head of engine development, Wolfgang Hatz, he demanded three years and two months in prison without probation, for an engineer who was also accused, two years on probation and 50,000 euros.
At the beginning of his plea, Petzka said that he did not see the accused as primarily responsible for the diesel scandal. It is “doubtful at all” whether in such a complex structure there could even be one or more persons primarily responsible from a criminal point of view, “when so many people involved in the company are going in the wrong direction”. This must also be kept in mind when assessing criminal law. On the other hand, Petzka emphasized the high damage and the “massive environmental mess” caused by the scandal.
The trial revolves around manipulated exhaust systems on diesel vehicles. Hatz and the engineer are accused of involvement in it. At Stadler, on the other hand, the accusation is only that the sale of the vehicles in Germany was not stopped in time.
Each of the four original defendants confessed during the trial, which began in the fall of 2020. The proceedings against one of them have already been discontinued for a fee, and before the confessions were made between Stadler and the engineer, there were agreements between the accused, the court and the public prosecutor’s office on the sentence. The former Audi boss had previously protested his innocence.
Only in the spring, after the court indicated that he could face imprisonment, did he change his position and admit the allegations. In the case of Hatz, the public prosecutor’s office had rejected an agreement sought by the court, which should also include probation in return for a confession. Petzka spoke of the fact that this would have been “too moderate”. His demand was correspondingly higher.