The former general director of Audi, recently sentenced in Germany to conditional prison in the case of the rigged diesel engine scandal, will appeal the sentence, the German justice announced Tuesday. Rupert Stadler, former head of the ring firm from 2007 to 2018, and two other convicts “appealed the judgment of June 27 through their lawyers,” the Munich Regional Court said in a press release. The first leader of the Volkswagen group to be tried in the Dieselgate case, he received a suspended sentence of 21 months in prison and a fine of 1.1 million euros last week, after a long trial that began in September 2020.
The 60-year-old manager had “established knowledge” in July 2016 “at the latest” of the installation of illegal software in models of the Audi and VW brands, but without having taken the “necessary measures” to stop its commercialization, he had detailed Judge Stefan Weickert during the reading of the sentence. The former leader had always questioned the charges before agreeing at the end of the trial to make a full confession to the crime of “fraud by omission” that he was accused of, at the proposal of the court. If in this way he was able to avoid a sentence that could reach ten years in prison, his lawyers now seem to want to free him from any sentence.
The appeal will be heard by the German supreme court.
The other two convicts appealing are a former Audi and Porsche technical director, Wolfgang Hatz, and his Audi right-hand man, Giovanni Pamio, who received suspended prison sentences accompanied by monetary fines. The floor of the Munich court, which had requested 3.2 years in prison against Wolfgang Hartz, also appealed the sentence handed down against this defendant. The court now has until April to give written reasons for his sentence and send it to the parties. The appeal against this decision will be heard by the Bundesgerichtshof in Karlsruhe, Germany’s highest court, which will rule on questions of law.
The “Dieselgate” caused a worldwide scandal and seriously tarnished the reputation of the German car industry. In 2015, following accusations by the US Environmental Agency (EPA), Volkswagen admitted having fitted 11 million “EA 189” type engines in its diesel vehicles with software capable of making them appear less polluting in laboratory tests and on the road. Since then, the Wolfsburg group has had to pay more than 30 billion euros in refunds, damages and legal costs, most of it in the United States.
Source: BFM TV
