In the trial for the bankruptcy of the Wirecard financial group, the defense attorney for the accused former CEO Markus Braun attacked the court again.
Since the beginning of the trial in December, the public prosecutor's office has added thousands of pages of additional documents, and even between the years there have been terabytes of data.
Henning Peitsmeier
Business correspondent in Munich.
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"We are overwhelmed with documents that no one can evaluate," said Alfred Dierlamm, Braun's criminal defense attorney, on Thursday in the hearing before the Munich Regional Court.
He asked the presiding judge Markus Födisch: "Do you actually still have an overview?"
Weeks ago, Dierlamm applied for the court to suspend the proceedings because there was no chance of including the new files in the defense.
Judge Födisch replied in the courtroom at the Munich-Stadelheim prison that the chamber would “not break the decision on the application for suspension”.
Födisch suggested starting the interrogation of Markus Braun on January 18th.
He plans five days of negotiations for this.
Dierlamm refused.
First, the chamber must decide on his suspension request, said the defense attorney.
Only then will he decide with Braun on the modalities of his admission.
"Enormous impertinence"
The defense attorney for the co-defendant Stephan von Erffa, Sabine Stetter, also complained about the flood of files from the public prosecutor's office.
She spoke of an "enormous impertinence", but did not agree with Dierlamm's application for suspension.
The decision on this and the necessary justification are considered delicate, because defense lawyers can derive reasons for an appeal against a later judgment.
The Wirecard process is about accounting fraud, market manipulation, breach of trust and commercial gang fraud.
The accused Braun and von Erffa have denied the allegations.