German bank process: Prosecutor threatens disgrace – SPIEGEL ONLINE

The redeeming word speaks – again – the chairman: The court would like to close the inquiry on 23 February: “Possibly could then later prove applications are rejected due to carryover intention,” said the judge. Everyone in the room where the alleged attempted fraud process of board members of Deutsche Bank will be negotiated, suspects who apply this rate and the bad word of the “carry-intention” especially: the senior public prosecutor Christiane Serini. was

In the media announced for this Tuesday a declaration by the yet-Co-Chief of the Frankfurter money house Jürgen Fitschen, who now, since from the perspective of the defense no witness and no document has confirmed the indictment alleged, again itself against the wanted to defend suspected of having before the 5th Civil Division of the Higher Regional Court (OLG) Munich incorrectly testified.

In this process, which ran until the end of 2012, it had gone to claims for compensation of the ailing media mogul Leo Kirch against the German bank. The bankers had conspired and gave false, so the prosecution to avoid a claim Kirch in millions, perhaps even billions,.

Unique in the judicial history of the postwar period

The starting point of this OLG process had been the infamous interview in which the former CEO Rolf Breuer in New York had told Bloomberg TV said in 2002 the unexpected question of further financial assistance to the tumbling media giant Kirch: “What all you can read about and hear is true, that the financial sector is not ready to put on an unchanged basis, further debt or even own resources available. ” This sentence, which only summarized opinion of the Bank, which at that time could not know anyone who is interested to have the church put out of business.

The OLG Senate with the Chairman Guido Kotschy, of his aversion to everything may have to do with banks, had barely in check, designated in its judgment against Breuer and the bank claims the Kirch page as “basically right”. Although the prospects for another review of the matter by the Federal Court appeared promising, the Bank paid a surprise 925 million euros.

An admission of guilt? As we now know, was a reason for this on record threatening the Munich prosecutor, even then in the form of Serini, which announced that it would bring the entire Board in the dock when the bank does not crawl to the cross. Such intervention of the prosecutor’s office is probably unique in the history of post-war justice. And that a big bank can be intimidated by a prosecutor as well. Since Serini enjoys in its authority a special reputation.

The Prosecutor’s Office does not give up

Now, in the Criminal Procedure, is negotiating the matter one of the most experienced Munich economic criminal judge, Peter Noll. No one in the hall remains hidden, that the front does not run between the court and the defense. The distance of the judges to the colleagues of the prosecutor’s office seems rather at least as great as the defenders. When one has heard so many reprimands towards the accuser of a chairman?

So also this Tuesday, as not – as announced – Fitschen maintains, but his lawyer Hanns figs manifests itself to the opinion of the prosecutor’s office on 12 January. It goes back and forth. Each side accuses the other false presentation. Once this is likely to be that a prosecutor after 27 days of negotiations still does not want to take note apparently what has resulted in the current inquiry. Namely: It can no longer be any question of an appointment to the joint process fraud.

And the artifice of the prosecutor, instead of the Bank to reproach a lack of control system, lack of documentation and an unclear reporting what the classic case of vicarious liability, ie an offense would be, has to defend vehemently. Furthermore, it is this topic “far removed from what has been placed on the boards of Deutsche Bank who are here in the indictment alleged,” said figs.

But the prosecutor does not give up. It provides evidence for a resolution to request for evidence, mostly identical with the statements in the indictment. The Chairman warns: “It’s about the accusation, on which we are now negotiating for 27 days a misdemeanor attacks by yes only when no offense is noted!”

Whether the chamber, as indicated by the chairman, may the beginning of April their judgment? The impression does not deceive well that – if the prosecution has already feared an acquittal – the defendants are alleged to suffer the accusation of fraud process from the perspective of the prosecution at least as long as possible. Given the effort which the prosecution has operated, that would be a disgrace of the first order.

About the Author

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    Gisela Friedrichsen reports from courtrooms at home and abroad since 1989th The SPIEGEL reporter “includes the events on the fact that it combines analytical rigor and personal sensitivity and caution,” writes law professor and novelist Bernhard Schlink.


 

Kirch against the German bank – the Chronicle