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70-Year-Old Former Volkswagen CEO Charged With Fraud Over Emissions Scandal (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader quotes CNN:
The U.S.government has charged Martin Winterkorn, the former chief executive officer of Volkswagen, with fraud in the company's diesel emissions-cheating scandal. The indictment was unsealed in Detroit on Thursday, revealing that Winterkorn had been charged on March 14 with wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud Volkswagen's American customers and violate the Clean Air Act...
Volkswagen admitted in late 2015 that it fitted as many as 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide with software that could cheat emissions tests... The indictment alleges that Winterkorn was made aware of emissions cheating in May 2014 and July 2015, and that he agreed with other senior executives to continue the practice... Winterkorn, 70, is believed to be a resident of Germany. He is the ninth person charged by the U.S. government over emissions cheating.
Volkswagen admitted in late 2015 that it fitted as many as 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide with software that could cheat emissions tests... The indictment alleges that Winterkorn was made aware of emissions cheating in May 2014 and July 2015, and that he agreed with other senior executives to continue the practice... Winterkorn, 70, is believed to be a resident of Germany. He is the ninth person charged by the U.S. government over emissions cheating.
And the American bankers who caused the '08 meltdown got bonuses for breaking the law.
they'll tie it up in court until he dies.
No need. Germany doesn't extradite its citizens.
coal companies are blowing the top off of mountains and detroying streams and creeks and they are not in violation of the clean water act.
Absolute statements are never true
I must say your sober, polite and factual text have made me realize what I fool I have been all my life. I'll now convert and spend my remaining time in a monastery contemplating over these truths.
Germany do extradite its citizen and there are treaty for it, supplemented by EU wide treaty. In fact here is the german/us one : https://www.google.com/url?sa=...
What it does not allow like many other EU country, is to extradite if there is a death penalty. Either the target country has to give up the death +penalty, or never apply it. I think winterkorn is safe from death penalty , so if the offense is valid under german law (and fraud is) extradition is not off the table.
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As we now know to be true, in 2008, agencies and individuals in the United States committed a massive amount of fraud in the run-up to what is in all possibility one of the worst financial crimes yet seen.
Although many of the victims of that crime were American citizens who lost jobs and homes because of the bankers' greed, they were not the only ones. Investors and savers and pensioners the world over have been absolutely devastated because of that one event, with literally tens of thousands of people across the world working into their 70s and 80s - literally until they drop dead - because of that massive amount of financial mis-management.
I appreciate that the 2008 financial crimes and the subsequent emissions scandal are two very different crimes, but how come not one US banker is serving time for what happened in 2008? How come the United States hasn't given up any of the culprits to those nations whose citizens have been robbed?
The American people have every right to be angry with the emissions scandal. What was done was wrong. I am not trying to argue otherwise. However, I am pointing out that when crimes span countries, justice is far from even-handed.
I would absolutely stand with the environmental campaigners of the United States and demand justice for the way that VAG conspired to cheat emissions testing for their vehicles. However, that would be conditional upon fair and even-handed exercise of justice. We simply can't go around selectively choosing how to serve justice.
For example, it also wasn't fair for the United States to bring a misdemeanour charge and $100,000 in fines against former General David Patreus and then convict Chelsea Manning of 19 charges including theft and espionage and then sentence her to 35 years in prison. In order for justice to work, it not only has to be fair, it has to be seen to be fair.
I'm not for one moment suggesting that the United States should not seek compensation from Volkswagen, but if they are going to ask for it, then they need to offer up an equal amount of justice for all those outside the United States who have been wronged or injured by the actions of US citizens. Anything less is hypocrisy - and it serves to undermine any good that the United States tries to do in the world.
Of course we do, if there is a solid case.
27 people have historically been extradited from Germany. Of those 15 were not German citizens and 12 were tried as war criminals and extradited by the Allies for their involvement in the international law.
You're German (I think) so I'm just going to link to you your own constitution without a translation. As a citizen you are only allowed to be sent to another EU state or to an international court.
Make no mistake, Martin Winterkorn will NOT be extradited to Germany, not for his current crimes in the USA, and not if he committed far worse ones.
Indeed but the treaty is just an extradition treaty and does not define *who* gets extradited. Specifically Germany is only allowed to extradite a non-citizen under the Article 16 of the German constitution. https://www.gesetze-im-interne... exception being extradition for final destination in an EU country, and extradition to appear in front of an international court.
The only German citizens who have ever been extradited have been war criminals and most of them didn't leave the EU.