Markus Braun, the main defendant in the criminal trial surrounding the billion-euro bankruptcy of the financial group Wirecard, intends to speak at the beginning of next week.

"We have now set ourselves up for Monday," said Braun's defense lawyer Alfred Dierlamm on Wednesday at the hearing before the Munich Regional Court. "Dr. Braun will speak relatively freely."

Former Wirecard CEO Braun has been in custody since the collapse of the payment processor two and a half years ago. During this time, he had only made a brief statement to the Wirecard investigation committee of the Bundestag. On Wednesday, Dierlam reacted cautiously to the request of presiding judge Markus Födisch that Braun should be ready on Thursday. Födisch had made it clear that he wanted to give Braun the opportunity to testify if there was still time on that day after other points had been clarified.

The former DAX company Wirecard collapsed in June 2020 when it became known that 1.9 billion euros were missing from its cash register. Alongside Braun in the dock are former managers Oliver Bellenhaus and Stephan von Erffa. The public prosecutor's office is accusing them of balance sheet fraud, market manipulation, breach of trust and gang fraud.

Bellenhaus, who is considered a key witness and has heavily incriminated the other two, describes the events as a joint falsification of the balance sheet, for which billions were invented. So-called third-party partner companies were set up for this purpose. Dierlamm, on the other hand, is convinced that existing sums in the billions were concealed behind Braun's back. Von Erffa has also had the accusations rejected by his lawyer.

Braun's and von Erffa's lawyers spent hours on Wednesday trying to shake Bellenhaus' credibility with hundreds of questions. "Do you have any factual evidence that Dr. Braun was aware of manipulation in connection with the Wirecard third-party business?" Dierlamm asked him. The lawyer also demanded clarification from Bellenhaus about several million payments to company accounts in the Wirecard environment. Von Erffa's lawyer Stephanie Kamp wanted to know what assets Bellenhaus had had access to.

However, Bellenhaus, who had described Braun and von Erffa as his accomplices for days, did not want to answer this question on Wednesday. He invoked his right to remain silent. Bellenhaus' defense attorney Florian Eder added, however, that they would take another look at the questions submitted in writing by the attorneys on 91 pages. Braun's and von Erffa's lawyers have announced detailed statements on Bellenhaus' comments for Thursday.

(Report by Jörn Poltz, edited by Ralf Banser. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)