Last words are spoken, most of those present wear black. But no one in the high-security courtroom under the Stadelheim prison is really sad. Rather relieved. Because in the tough criminal proceedings surrounding the exhaust gas scandal at the luxury manufacturer Audi, the defense attorneys of ex-Audi boss Rupert Stadler, Wolfgang Hatz, the then head of engine development and later Porsche board member, and the former engineer Giovanni P. held their pleas. It is the penultimate day in a process that has been going on for almost three years and more than 170 sessions to find out how fraud could have happened with the manipulated exhaust gas values of diesel engines – and who is responsible for it. The court will deliver its verdict next week.
According to public prosecutor Nico Petzka last week, the process involves an estimated total damage of a good 2.2 billion euros. According to Petzka, the three defendants were responsible for this damage with the sales of souped-up six and eight-cylinder engines in the USA and Germany. At the end of March, the presiding judge, Stefan Weickert, made an offer: confessions and monetary conditions for all the accused in return for suspended sentences of between one and a half and two years plus monetary conditions. Otherwise jail. A deal that everyone finally got into – in the case of Stadler and Giovanni P., the public prosecutor’s office too. Because they have confessed, they are now demanding two years in prison on probation.
Hatz, on the other hand, is to be imprisoned for three years and two months, according to the prosecution. A punishment that Hatz’ lawyer Gerson Trüg considers too high. The evidence is “not sufficiently acknowledged” by the prosecution. Trüg also emphasizes his client’s confession and its value: It deserves “the rating particularly valuable”. The indictment, on the other hand, was “a semi-finished product”. Nevertheless: “The confession stands and it stands.” A hint with which Trüg apparently wants to influence the court again, even against the will of the public prosecutor’s office, to impose a suspended sentence for Hatz.
Giovanni P.’s defenders spoke up in detail in the morning. The engineer was once involved as a department head in the development of the manipulated diesel, but two hierarchical levels below Hatz and even further below Stadler. “Mr P. was made a pawn by his employer – and still is today,” says his lawyer Klaus Schroth. And his colleague Walter Lechner adds that his client was “just a cog” in the big gears of Audi and VW. And in view of the loss of his job and high legal and legal costs, “everything looks like bankruptcy” for him. The other two accused, according to Lechner, probably paid their fine “out of their pockets”.
In the end, Stadler’s lawyer Thilo Pfordte is comparatively brief. The public prosecutor’s office “shifted down three gears” in the process, which he welcomes, and it also made it easier to reach an understanding. But Pfordte is not completely satisfied either: He is particularly bothered by the 69 million euros in damage that Stadler is said to have been responsible for, according to the public prosecutor. He also had “exposed, but not sole responsibility for decisions”.