More than four years after the acid attack on the former RWE and Innogy manager Bernhard Günther, the Wuppertal public prosecutor's office has brought charges against a 41-year-old Belgian.
The man and another person are said to have attacked the then 51-year-old manager on March 4, 2018 after he was jogging near his home and injured him with highly concentrated acid.
Innogy had offered a reward of 100,000 euros at the time.
In an interview, Günther had shown himself to be convinced that the motive behind the crime was in the "professional environment".
The accused was arrested in the Belgian province of Limburg on December 14 last year and extradited to Germany.
He faced between three and 15 years in prison if convicted.
The background to the attack in which Günther was seriously injured is still unclear.
Today the manager is the chief financial officer of the Finnish energy company Fortum.
According to the public prosecutor's office, the charge before the large criminal chamber of the Wuppertal Regional Court is intentionally caused joint serious bodily harm in combination with dangerous bodily harm.
Extensive investigations revealed, among other things, that the DNA profile matched DNA traces found at the crime scene.
So far, the man has not commented on the suspicion.
The district court of Wuppertal must now decide whether to open main proceedings.
There was no substantiated suspicion against other suspects.