The former head of Volkswagen AG's (VW) employee council denounced his prison sentence on corruption charges as unfair and insisted in an interview released on Saturday that he was never "bought."
A court in Braunschweig, Germany, on Friday convicted Klaus Volkert of inciting breach of trust against the company. It sentenced him to two years and nine months in prison.
It ruled that Volkert knew he had no right to "special bonuses" worth 1.9 million euros (US$2.8 million). Former VW personnel chief Peter Hartz was convicted last year of breach of trust and given a suspended two-year sentence after admitting that he awarded the bonuses in an effort to curry favor.
"The verdict is not acceptable for me," Volkert was quoted as saying in an interview with the weekly Der Spiegel. "If you see that ... Hartz got away with a significantly lower and suspended sentence, I have to assume that there is a two-class justice."
Volkert's lawyers have said they will appeal.
Volkert complained that, unlike Hartz, prosecutors never offered him a deal, Der Spiegel reported.
Volkert is a key figure in a probe centered on whether VW's influential employee representatives received illegal privileges, including lavish foreign trips involving prostitutes paid for by the company. The probe started after Volkswagen alerted prosecutors to possible wrongdoing.
"I have never been bought and I would never have allowed myself to be bought," Volkert told Der Spiegel.
He also argued that the cozy relations between management and employee representatives were not necessarily a bad thing.
"VW tripled its share value at the time; the work force got good money," he said. "To this day, I cannot see any damage there."
Volkert was quoted as suggesting that Volkswagen supervisory board chairman Ferdinand Piech -- the chief executive at the time -- likely knew something about what was going on.
"Anyone who knows the way things were in the company at the time finds it hard to imagine that that all happened without Piech," Volkert said, according to the report. "There was little he didn't know about at VW."
Piech has denied that he knew anything about the bonuses and other irregularities. Hartz also has said that Piech was unaware.
Meanwhile, VW dismissed Volkert's comments.
"The court established clearly who the victim is and who the perpetrator is," company spokesman Andreas Meurer said.
"We find Volkert's comments, with which he wants to push himself retrospectively into the victim's role, grotesque," he said.
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