Wirecard ex-boss Markus Braun.
Photo by Peter Kneffel/picture alliance via Getty Images
- Ex-Wirecard boss Markus Braun is to testify before the investigative committee in the German Bundestag.
- However, Braun refuses to appear in person before the committee. His lawyer attacks the committee and calls it “irresponsible”.
- Members of the Bundestag are demanding that Braun appear in person.
–
On Thursday next week, the former CEO of the scandal group Wirecard, Markus Braun, will testify before the investigative committee of the German Bundestag. According to the will of the MPs, Braun should appear in person.
The former board of directors is now raising serious allegations against the Bundestag through his lawyer Alfred Dierlamm. The plan of the Wirecard investigative committee to bring Braun from the prison in Augsburg to Berlin and to want to hear it publicly there next Thursday would lead to “unacceptable health risks” in view of the corona pandemic. Dierlamm wrote this in a letter to the committee. The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reported on it first.
Braun’s lawyer announces that he will “take legal action” against a “compulsory presentation” of his client. Dierlamm has to raise an objection to the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, the court is responsible. The lawyer calls the committee’s approach “irresponsible”. He offers the committee to interview his client via video.
The recently appointed committee wants to clarify whether German supervisory authorities have made gross mistakes in the Wirecard case and whether they may be complicit in this. The responsibility of the federal government is also being examined. Three former Wirecard board members are to be interrogated next Thursday.
The members of the Bundestag and chairmen in the investigative committee Danyal Bayaz (Greens), Fabio De Masi (left) and Florian Toncar (FDP) respond in a joint statement on Saturday with incomprehension to the lawyer’s letters. “For good reasons, the law provides for the hearing of witnesses present in person as a rule. A witness’s right to video interrogation, such as Dr. Braun seems to assert, does not exist in our opinion. The video interrogation is a decision which is at the discretion of the committee and which is exceptional, ”the statement said.
“The hearing is more authentic this way and the picture that the committee can get of the witnesses is comprehensive. The need for an authentic impression of a witness weighs more heavily, the more important a witness is for the investigative work of the discriminatory committee. All three witnesses in question are of great importance to our work, the witness Dr. Braun is of outstanding importance, ”the three MPs continue.
–
