Trials on Siemens bribery begin in Nuremberg

BERLIN, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Two former high officials involved in Siemesn bribery scandal went on trial Wednesday, the beginning of several trials for Siemens, at the state court in Nuremberg.

Wilhelm Schelsky, former leader of the conservative AUB union, went on trial for fraud and tax evasion. He was accused of filing 44 invoices for 30.3 million euros (about 47 million U.S. dollars)plus tax for training courses that he has never carried out.

Another on-trial official was Johannes Feldmayer, a former member of the main Siemens board. He was arrested last year and spent nine days in police custody. The court charged him for misappropriating corporate funds.

The prosecutors revealed that in 2001 Feldmayer, as an executive board member signed a contract with Schelsky to pay 2 million euros annually to AUB union.

On paper, this was mainly for union-operated training courses, but the indictment said Feldmayer's true purpose was to nurture AUB against another trade union, IG Metall, which is a principal militant industrial union in Germany and holds seats on the Siemens supervisory board.

The prosecutors also revealed how bribery was so popular at Siemens, with executives hiding the expenditure under innocuous descriptions in the corporate accounts.

Simens bribery scandal was opened to the public from November, 2006, which seriously damaged the image of Siemens. It has caused several of its high officials arrested and the resignation of its former chairman of the board, Heinrich von Pierer and CEO Klaus Kleinfeld.

Siemens has to appointed Peter Loescher, an outsider of the company, as its new CEO, breaking its 160 years of tradition. Until January 2008, the involved money has reached 1.5 billion euros and Siemens was facing investigations from countries like Germany, the United States, Italy and Greek. (1 U.S. dollar = 0.6447 euro)