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Munich (dpa) - Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun will also spend the turn of the year in prison.
«The appeals pending at the Regional Court of Munich I was filed with regard to the ongoing and not yet completed interrogations by Dr.
Braun has been withdrawn for the time being, especially as the legal detention review by the Munich Higher Regional Court will take place at the end of January 2021, ”said the lawyers of the manager who has been in custody for five months on Friday.
"We informed the public prosecutor's office in Munich I about the withdrawal."
It was Braun's second complaint in what is presumably the largest case of accounting fraud in Germany since 1945: After a temporary first arrest at the end of June, Braun was taken into custody at the end of July.
In September, the Munich public prosecutor's office circumvented the lawyers' first complaint by presenting a new, expanded arrest warrant.
On this basis, Braun has been behind bars ever since.
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Shortly afterwards, his lawyers filed the second arrest complaint, which has now been withdrawn.
At the end of January, the legal six-month deadline for pre-trial detention will be reached, to which Braun's lawyers refer.
The public prosecutor sees Braun as one of the main people responsible for “commercial gang fraud”, in which the Wirecard executive suite is said to have booked billions in bogus business over the years in order to keep the company afloat and to cheat credit.
In this way, Braun and accomplices are said to have cheated lending banks and investors by up to 3.2 billion euros, which are now most likely lost.
The insolvency proceedings are about a lot more money: banks, investors, Wirecard business partners and suppliers have now registered claims amounting to tens of billions.
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Among other things, the auditors from EY and the financial regulator Bafin are criticized because the fraud was not exposed earlier.
An investigative committee of the Bundestag also wants to find out whether the Chancellery suspected that things were not right at Wirecard.
In addition to Braun, two other former Wirecard managers are in custody.
The extensive interrogations of the former CEO began at the beginning of last week.
When asked, lawyer Alfred Dierlamm did not comment on the content of the interrogations, nor did the Munich public prosecutor say anything about the ongoing investigations.
The alleged balance sheet fraud helped Wirecard to rise to the Dax in 2018.
Braun became a billionaire in the meantime before the crash of Wirecard shares after the scandal was uncovered also melted his fortune.
At least as far as is known, the former CEO, in contrast to the volatile ex-sales director Jan Marsalek, neither tried to put his assets aside nor to sell himself.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 201218-99-740722 / 2