Status: December 15, 2021 3:40 p.m.
For the time being, he will not be released: the former Wirecard boss Markus Braun remains in custody after a decision by the Munich Higher Regional Court. The indictment is expected in the next few months.
The former CEO of Wirecard, Markus Braun, is not released even after a year and a half in custody. Braun was again unsuccessful with his arrest complaint and is now spending the second Christmas in a row behind bars. That was decided by the second criminal division of the Munich Higher Regional Court.
Braun has been in the Augsburg-Gablingen correctional facility since July 22, 2020. The public prosecutor’s office in Munich accuses the 52-year-old and other Wirecard executives of commercial fraud, embezzlement of group funds, falsifying accounts and manipulating the Wirecard share price. The Munich public prosecutor’s office is now investigating more than 30 people from the Wirecard environment.
Reasons for detention still exist
The Munich public prosecutor’s office has been working on charges against the former top manager for months, and it could stand in the first quarter of next year. Braun is likely to remain in custody until charges are brought. Detention tests take place every three months. It is then checked whether the grounds for imprisonment of urgent suspicion and the risk of fleeing still exist. At Braun, this has been the case with every test so far.
Public prosecutors are required to conduct their investigations quickly and, if possible, to conclude them, so that the accused do not sit in jail for an unnecessarily long time without a judgment. However, in complex criminal proceedings it happens again and again that pre-trial detention lasts a very long time – as in this case.
Braun rejects the allegations
Braun rejects the allegations of a key witness from the public prosecutor’s office, who is also in custody. The ex-Wirecard boss, who claims to have known nothing of the company’s criminal machinations, has already filed two detention complaints. Braun and his defense team argue that the former CEO was deceived by a criminal gang around ex-Asia director Jan Marsalek. Marsalek has been on the run for months.