BERLIN, July 16 (Xinhua) -- The attorneys of Volkswagen Group executives who are being treated as suspects in the ongoing "dieselgate" investigations in Germany will soon receive the detailed criminal charges filed against them, Klaus Ziehe, head of the Brunswick State Prosecution Office, announced on Monday.
Speaking to the German press agency (dpa), Ziehe said that suspects would gain insight into prosecution files in the course of the week. Several prominent suspects, including ex-Volkswagen chief executive officer (CEO) Martin Winterkorn, told press earlier that they would only comment publicly on accusations of being involved in diesel emissions-cheating practices when the ongoing investigation reached this stage.
Under German law, suspects have the right to assess and reply to concrete criminal charges in a given case before state prosecutors decide whether or not to place defendants on trial.
The Brunswick State Prosecution Office originally estimated that Winterkorn's legal team would be granted first access to the case files in early August.
Winterkorn was recently charged with criminal fraud, as well as conspiracy to breach environmental regulations and deceive regulatory authorities by a U.S. court in Detroit. An U.S. arrest warrant had already been issued against the ex-CEO earlier.
Winterkorn stepped down from his position at the helm of the Wolfsburg-based Volkswagen Group shortly after the first reports about the diesel emissions scandal were published in September 2015. He has repeatedly stated that he had no prior knowledge of emissions cheating practices affecting 11 million vehicles at his company.
The Brunswick State Prosecution Office currently lists 49 suspects in the German "dieselgate" investigation. A small number of senior Volkswagen executives, including Winterkorn, the new CEO Herbert Diess and board chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch are hereby believed to have potentially committed "market manipulation" offenses under German laws governing the conduct of publicly-listed companies.
Furthermore, Audi CEO Rupert Stadler became the first Volkswagen Group manager to be taken into police custody in Germany in relation to the diesel emissions scandal in June. German authorities have so far ordered the subsidiaries of the automotive corporation to recall a total of 2.4 million vehicles which had been fitted with illegal defeat devices to understate their nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions in regular traffic conditions.
According to Vera Jourova, the European Union (EU) commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, Volkswagen has completed 80 percent of diesel software updates which it agreed to in the wake of the scandal. While praising progress achieved since the announcement of the measures, Jourova criticized that the company was unwilling to cover the full cost of necessary repairs.
Additionally, Jourova highlighted that there were still significant inconsistencies in the scale of recall programs across the EU. In Romania, for example, only 36 percent of affected vehicles have undergone software updates.
