Disgraced VW boss Winterkorn faces trial after court approves charges

Hanover, Germany (dpa) – Martin Winterkorn, chairman of Volkswagen until he was toppled by the emissions-cheating scandal five years ago, is to stand trial after a German court approved charges of fraud against him.

The regional court in the city of Braunschweig said on Wednesday there was sufficient evidence to potentially convict the 73-year-old executive on the grounds of commercial and organized fraud.

Winterkorn will therefore have to answer publicly to the charges against him but it remains unclear when the trial will begin.

He was indicted in Germany in April 2019 on charges of serious fraud and violating competition laws.

Volkswagen, Europe’s biggest carmaker and a stalwart of German industry, was engulfed in scandal in September 2015 when US regulators uncovered the mass manipulation of its cars.

Diesel engines were fitted with so-called defeat devices in order to make them appear cleaner than they actually were in environmental standards tests.

The Braunschweig court said in a statement that customers were duped by the scheme and suffered a financial loss as a result, following an assessment of the case against Winterkorn by three judges.

The bid to prosecute him appeared to hit a roadblock in September last year when judge Christian Schuetz requested further information from investigators on a number of points in the indictment.

Among other things, the court had reportedly asked for an expert opinion on whether the software fitted in Volkswagen vehicles had in fact contained an illegal deception programme.