Police detain head of Audi

– Audi chief executive Rupert Stadler was arrested yesterday in connection with parent company Volkswagen’s “dieselgate” emissions cheating scandal, with prosecutors saying they feared he might try to destroy evidence.

The dramatic development comes a week after Munich prosecutors raided Stadler’s home, accusing him of fraud and the falsification of documents that allowed diesel vehicles equipped with cheating software to be sold to European customers.

Prosecutors in the Bavarian state said the arrest was justified because of the “risk of concealment of evidence”.

Audi confirmed the arrest, declining to give further details.

“For Mr Stadler, the presumption of innocence continues to apply,” a spokesperson said.

Stadler is the most senior executive yet to be detained in the dieselgate crisis, which started when the Volkswagen group admitted in 2015 to installing so-called “defeat devices” in about 11 million diesels worldwide that made them seem less polluting in lab tests than they actually were on the road.

The affected vehicles involved VW’s own brand cars, but also those made by Audi, Porsche, Skoda and Seat. VW’s luxury subsidiary Audi has long faced suspicions that its engineers helped create the software used in the scam.

Audi’s former head of engine development, Wolfgang Hatz, was taken into custody in Germany in September last year and remains behind bars.

A manager at VW subsidiary Porsche was also detained in April. He was identified by the media as Joerg Kerner, an engineer in charge of Porsche’s engine division who was working at Audi when the diesel scandal broke.

In a separate setback for Audi, German authorities earlier this month ordered the recall of some 60 000 Audi A6 and A7 cars across Europe to remove illegal emissions control software – using a different technique however than the one at the heart of dieselgate.

Auto industry expert Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer of the CAR research centre called the allegations against Stadler “very serious”. “Audi needs a new start.”

Stadler, 55, who joined Audi in 1990 and has been its chief executive since 2007, has enjoyed the full backing of VW’s top brass so far. But Dudenhoeffer said VW’s supervisory board may want to reconsider its stance.

“VW supervisory board chairman Wolfgang Porsche has to be careful that he doesn’t ‘burn’ the hand with which he is shielding Stadler,” he said.

Stadler’s arrest is the latest blow to the Volkswagen Group, which has struggled to shake off the dieselgate crisis and continues to face a litany of investigations at home and abroad.

Two former VW chief executives – Martin Winterkorn and his successor Matthias Mueller – have both landed in the sights of German prosecutors.–