Did VW’s CEO know of emissions fraud all along? Yes, says his boss

“Ferdinand Piech has incriminated a group’s former arch executive Martin Winterkorn with a minute matter to prosecutors,” a German repository said, though citing a sources.

According to a report, Piech told prosecutors that he himself schooled from an adviser in Feb 2015 that a association had a “big problem” in a United States.

The source told Piech that US authorities were looking into a use of utilizing program to fool wickedness tests and had upheld on their suspicions to Volkswagen.

Piech afterwards asked Winterkorn about it, who positive him that no such request from US officials existed, according to Der Spiegel.

Volkswagen certified in Sep 2015 that it had commissioned supposed better inclination in 11 million diesel engines worldwide to make a cars seem reduction polluting than they were.

Winterkorn quiescent days after a acknowledgment though has always insisted he knew zero of a rascal before it became open knowledge.

Prosecutors in a German city of Brunswick however announced final week that they were questioning Winterkorn for fraud, observant they had “sufficient indications” he knew about a intrigue progressing than he has admitted.

According to Der Spiegel, Piech gave his ban testimony when he was questioned by a prosecutors final year.

The orator for a prosecution’s bureau in Brunswick could not immediately be reached for comment.

If confirmed, it would be a latest shot opposite a crawl in a long-running adversary between Piech and his one-time protege.

Piech suddenly quiescent as conduct of a German automobile giant’s supervisory house in Apr 2015 following a sour energy onslaught with Winterkorn after a span apparently fell out over Volkswagen’s problems in creation inroads in a remunerative US market.

Piech, 79, is a grandson of a contriver of a iconic Beetle, a indication on that VW’s happening was built, and was himself VW’s arch executive between 1993 and 2002.

He is also one of a member of a Porsche family, whose holding association Porsche SE binds 52 percent of VW.