It seems that in the early days of February 2024, parts of the Munich Higher Regional Court together with the Munich Public Prosecutor's Office and some prison wardens have finally put the finishing touches to Kafka's The Trial. On February 5, 2024, three Wirecard judges together with members of the Munich public prosecutor's office decided to release Oliver Bellenhaus, the opponent of Wirecard's former CEO Dr. Markus Braun, from permanent imprisonment.

Wirecard process observers were pretty much altogether stunned and surprised and wondered why such a deal was crafted at this time, after almost one year of court hearings and testimony's. The answer came in a Kafkaesque manner two days later, when Bellenhaus was already walking freely around in room one of Munich's Stadelheim prison court on February 7, 2024.

Right at the beginning of the court hearing that day, the defense of Dr. Brauns had filed a motion with the court and requested to read its court application. This was denied by the court, which before had interrupted the hearing for about 5 minutes, then decided to reject the entire motion. The questioning of witness Dr. Anastasiya Lauterbach, the former Wirecard supervisory board member, was continued.


Dr. Braun's defense attorneys were already upset now, which turned into a full-blown verbal war after Dr. Lauterbach's testimony ended in the late afternoon. The court again refused to let the lawyer read his motion to dismiss two behind the scenes operating exchange Wirecard judges for bias - this in connection to the strange prison release deal made behind closed doors two days earlier.

Insiders must have at least partly agreed, because there are some big question marks surrounding Oliver Bellenhaus' release from prison. For example, he never had to disclose his income and assets to the courts and the public prosecutor's office in order to pass this information on to Wirecard's insolvency administrator Jaffe. Apparently, Jaffe never even considered forcing the courts to do so, while the other two defendants, Dr. Braun and von Erffa, had to register every single penny.

There is more, considering what will happen the following week on February 14, 2024 - Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday at the same time in Germany. The court, after more than a full calendar year of proceedings plus being the mainstream media originator of the huge notion of a Wirecard prisoner release a few days earlier, had finally ordered the same released prisoner Bellenhaus to answer the scandalous catalogue of questions compiled by Dr. Braun's and von Erffa's defense teams only exactly now.

The trial climax occured on February 7, 2024 in the evening, when Oliver Bellenhaus personally proposed to the court if it wouldn't be a great idea to just read out his carefully prepared, 365-days crafted answers and leave out the many spicy questions submitted a good year earlier. The judge, in turn, agrees immediately and states, quote, "that is a good idea Mr. Bellenhaus, then we save ourselves time next week". Dr. Braun's lawyer is understandably angry, he declares that the way the judge is leading this process is "a scandal" and that the court "does not want the public to hear what is really going on in this entire case". When the lawyer refers to the sudden and in his view scandalous release from prison of Mr. Bellenhaus, the judge interrupts immediately with, quote, "that is something that does not concern your client, but only Mr. Bellenhaus".

When Dr. Braun's lawyer is now literally furious, the leading prosecutor of the opposing side immediately jumps on his words and starts to shout even louder in unclear verbal attacks into the court microphone.


Sort of kafkaesque.