In an important interim step in the Munich Wirecard trial, psychiatrists and psychologists declared the previously silent third defendant E. to be mentally normal. According to the assessment of the two experts Norbert Nedopil and Maximilian Wertz, the 49-year-old former chief accountant of the DAX group, which collapsed in 2020, is neither autistic nor has any other psychological problems.
E. could still play a key role in the further course of the trial: he is the only one of the three defendants who remains silent during the proceedings. So far it’s been one statement against another: former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun categorically denies the main accusation of billion-dollar fraud. On the other hand, manager Oliver Bellenhaus, who formerly worked for the group in Dubai, has acted as a key witness and accused both Braun and E. of being accomplices.
Meanwhile, E. is thinking about breaking his silence. There will be another legal discussion between his defense lawyers and the chamber in the next few weeks. The scion of an old aristocratic family had requested the report himself in order to have a possible autistic disorder clarified – such a disorder would be important for the assessment of culpability.
“He was largely inconspicuous, inconspicuously dressed, inconspicuous in behavior,” said psychiatric expert Nedopil. Psychologist Wertz certified that E. had an IQ of 110 in the upper normal range and “no sufficient evidence of an autism spectrum disorder.” During the course of the proceedings, many witnesses described the long-time head of Wirecard’s accounting department as a knowledgeable and competent financier with a tendency to outbursts of anger
According to the indictment, E., together with former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun and key witness Oliver Bellenhaus, was a member of a gang of fraudsters in the Wirecard executive suite who fabricated billions in non-existent fictitious sales over the years.
