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A Munich court ordered the release of Wirecard’s former Dubai-based manager Oliver Bellenhaus from police custody after more than three years, leaving the failed payment group’s former head Markus Braun as the only executive still in jail as the trial continues.
Bellenhaus had been in charge of a Dubai-based Wirecard subsidiary at the heart of the fraud, which led to the insolvency of the once high-flying German technology group in the summer of 2020.
Shortly after Wirecard’s demise, Bellenhaus voluntarily travelled to Munich and turned himself in to prosecutors. He has since become chief witness for the prosecution who have charged Braun, Wirecard’s former head of accounting Stephan von Erffa and Bellenhaus himself on multiple counts, including fraud.
The court’s move to release Bellenhaus represents a vote of confidence by Munich judges in the credibility of the prosecution’s chief witness, according to people familiar with the decision.
It is also a setback for Braun who has been implicated heavily by the testimony Bellenhaus has given in the more than year-long trial. The decision to release Bellenhaus from custody followed an application from his lawyers.
Braun maintains he is innocent and has accused Bellenhaus of lying to cover up his own key role in the fraud. Braun’s lawyer Alfred Dierlamm told the Financial Times on Tuesday that the decision to release Bellenhaus was “a dirty deal done behind closed doors”.
According to Bellenhaus’s testimony, Wirecard’s outsourced operations in Asia were a sham and invented at the behest of Braun to inflate the company’s balance sheet, thereby deceiving the group’s auditors, investors and creditors.
Braun staunchly rejects that view, claiming that the Asian operations were real and has accused Bellenhaus and others of having embezzled its proceeds without his own knowledge.
Wirecard collapsed after disclosing that €1.9bn in corporate cash did not exist. The criminal trial in Munich, which started in December 2022, is expected to run until at least the end of this year.
As part of the decision to release him from custody, Bellenhaus was ordered to hand in his passports. He is also required to attend the trial hearings and is banned from talking to other defendants in the trial and potential witnesses.
In a statement announcing their decision to release Bellenhaus, the court pointed to his extensive confession and a willingness to pay a significant amount of money to Wirecard’s administrator to mitigate the financial damage from the fraud.
The court has previously turned down applications from Braun’s lawyers for their client to be released from jail, saying the former chief executive was a flight risk and may tamper with evidence or influence witnesses.
