However, it was not clear from his testimony whether the brazilian accused, adriana barros, knew that she was receiving a lot of money from VW that she was not entitled to. Barro's lover at the time, ex-VW works council head volkert, is to appear in court on tuesday of next week (24.) testify as a witness in the trial before the local court of wolfsburg. He has already served his prison sentence for disloyalty.
The brazilian woman is accused by the public prosecutor of aiding and abetting unfaithfulness in 26 cases. The journalist is alleged to have received around 250,000 euros from VW in return for sham invoices. In addition, private flights and hotel bills were settled at group expense.
Ex-human resources manager gebauer testified on monday that he only ever made payments to the brazilian on volkert's instructions. His duties included organizing and accounting for the works council's travels. It may well be that barros assumed that volkert and not VW was paying, the ex-human resources manager said. At another point, however, he explained: "I think it is unlikely that she could have assumed that volkert would pay her that."
At first, bills were paid from his private account. "Then it was settled with the top management, with vouchers or substitute vouchers," reported gebauer. Mostly it was about flights and hotel bills for adriana barros, who flew to places all over the globe where volkert had a meeting. There were always two different programs for these trips – the main aim was to ensure that volkert's wife did not see anything of his beloved.
A quarterly payment for the brazilian woman of 23,000 euros – a total of around 250,000 euros – was also made via gebauer's private account. "A rule that was handled very discreetly in the company," said gebauer. Gebauer was sentenced to one year's imprisonment on probation for disloyalty, among other things. The trial against the ex-lover is expected to be the last in the VW kickback affair – reports of managers' pleasure trips and corrupt executives deeply shook the car company in 2005.