MUNICH (dpa-AFX) - On the 138th day of the trial, the third defendant in the Wirecard trial has broken his silence. The head of accounting, E., admitted at the beginning of his two-day statement that he had made mistakes that he regretted and for which he wanted to apologize. However, he also emphasized that he had not personally enriched himself and had always wanted the best for the company. In addition, he had only dealt with many things very briefly and had relied on the specialist departments.

"I had a lot of issues on my plate and felt like a juggler who was fully occupied with making sure that no ball fell," said E., describing his work. He had no time to deal with the individual balls in detail. Today, however, he realizes that he should have stopped and done so.

Not the strength to question everything

Overall, E. painted a picture of poor staffing, poor processes and an overwhelming workload. "It was actually always the case that two people wanted something from me at the same time," he said, describing his typical working day. There was a lot of time pressure, especially with the annual financial statements. "You don't have the time or the energy to scrutinize everything. That's what the specialist department is for," said E. You have to be able to trust their information. Their answers were often only passed on to the auditors. "If they were happy with it, so were we."

E. did not initially comment on the third-party partner business, which played a central role in the collapse of Wirecard. However, he did qualify his expectations at the beginning of his statement. This had not been the focus of his work and he only had a lot of information about it from hearsay. He could only talk about "many years at the desk" at Wirecard.

The payment service provider Wirecard went into insolvency in June 2020 because 1.9 billion euros held in escrow accounts could no longer be found. The indictment accuses the three defendants as well as the former Chief Sales Officer Jan Marsalek, who went into hiding, and other accomplices of having simply fabricated billions in sales in order to keep the loss-making DAX-listed company afloat. E. has so far remained silent in the trial, which has been ongoing since December 2022. Braun has denied all allegations, while Bellenhaus, who has confessed, is appearing as a key witness and accusing the two co-defendants./ruc/DP/jha