Rupert Stadler is still in prison. The iconic boss of Audi, brand of the Volkswagen group (VW), slept one more time behind bars Sunday night, after a series of statements deemed “unsatisfactory” by the prosecutor of Munich. Last week, Mr. Stadler, who is suspected of being personally involved in the handling of large-scale diesel engines of Audi, is deprived of liberty. He was arrested Monday, June 14, in the morning, at his home in Ingolstadt, Bavaria.
A boss in the year placed in detention, this had never happened in Germany. For the native of Tittin, in the county of Eichstätt, a few kilometres from the headquarters of Audi, it’s difficult to imagine an end-of-career most humiliating. The darling of the region became the symbol of a car company for too long blinded by his own power.
According to the German press, the prosecutor has decided to place Mr. Stadler in detention after the judicial police overheard a phone conversation where he discusses the possibility of suspending an engineer. The employee, employee in the “task force” set up by Audi for finally making the light on the magnitude of the manipulations in the constructor, had made a long deposition before the magistrates where he talked of the difficulties of interviewing some officers. Prosecutors fear now the risk of tampering with a witness and destruction of evidence.
“Being put in danger by the wheeling and dealing of Audi ”
Rupert Stadler has so far rejected all charges against him. Audi recalls that he enjoys the presumption of innocence. But according to information from the Süddeutsche Zeitung of 19 June, which cites sources close to the investigation, there is every reason to believe that Audi has been the development unit of the fraud gigantic orchestrated within the Volkswagen group to work around the controls pollution. According to the magistrates, it is in Audi…
