BERLIN—German prosecutors on Monday opened an investigation against former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn to establish what his role was in the emissions-rigging scandal that has shaken the world’s largest automaker.
The investigation will concentrate on the suspicion of fraud committed through the sale of vehicles with manipulated emissions data, and aims to determine who was responsible, prosecutors in Braunschweig said in a statement.
In the German system, anyone can file a criminal complaint with prosecutors, who are then obliged to examine it and decide whether there is enough evidence to open a formal investigation.
In this case, following the revelations about the rigged tests, prosecutors in Braunschweig, near VW’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, received about a dozen complaints, including one from Volkswagen itself, said spokeswoman Julia Meyer.
She said it was too early to say if and when prosecutors may try and interview Winterkorn himself, and that she did not know whether he already had an attorney to represent him.
She said at this stage, she could not estimate how long the investigation would last.
“This is a very broad case and in other such investigations it has taken many months, sometimes years,” she said.
Winterkorn, Volkswagen’s CEO since 2007, resigned Wednesday—days after the world’s top-selling carmaker admitted that it had rigged diesel emissions to pass U.S. tests during his tenure. He said that he was going “in the interests of the company even though I am not aware of any wrongdoing on my part.”
