BERLIN, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The lawyer of Martin Winterkorn, the former chief executive officer (CEO) of Volkswagen AG, has expressed surprise on Friday that his client is being charged with fraud by U.S. judicial authorities in the "dieselgate" scandal.
"We are astonished by the criminal charges, the receipt of which we acknowledge," Winterkorn's attorney Felix Doerr told the newspaper "Handelsblatt".
Although Winterkorn himself was unwilling to comment publicly on the matter, the team of lawyers representing the ex-CEO issued a statement to press that it would respond later in greater detail "at the appropriate time" once a comprehensive analysis of the accusations had been completed.
Winterkorn has been charged by a U.S. court in Detroit with criminal fraud, as well as conspiracy to breach environmental regulations and deceive regulatory authorities in connection to widely-publicized revelations of emissions cheating at Volkswagen.
Investigators believe that Winterkorn was made aware of the installation of illicit software in diesel vehicles between May 2015 and July 2015, but decided together with other senior executives to allow the practice to continue. If tried successfully by U.S. judicial authorities, the suspect faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in jail.
The ex-CEO has repeatedly emphasized that he had no knowledge of emissions cheating practices affecting 11 million vehicles at Volkswagen prior to first reports about the diesel emissions scandal by media in September 2015.
Winterkorn is the ninth former or current Volkswagen employee who has been charged with criminal conduct by U.S. authorities in this case.
Reacting to the news on Friday, the State Prosecution Office of the city of Brunswick said that its own investigations of Winterkorn's role in the scandal would continue unperturbed. While the U.S. developments had been "registered with interest", the German attorney general Klaus Ziehe highlighted that his office would need more time to decide whether or not to file criminal charges as well.
The Brunswick State Prosecution Office currently lists 49 suspects in the German "dieselgate" investigation. A small number of senior 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.
The state government of Lower Saxony, the second largest owner of Volkswagen shares, told press on Friday that it had acknowledged the formal filing of U.S. charges against Winterkorn. Nevertheless, a spokesperson for the state government did not want to offer her own evaluation of the development "out of respect for the procedures of the U.S, judicial authorities, as well as the ongoing investigations in Germany".
According to judicial circles, Winterkorn remains in Germany for the time being and has so far not been taken into police custody since the beginning of the diesel emissions scandal.
