Punishment sought for ex-Siemens manager

Reinhard Siekaczek, a 57-year-old former manager at the ICN fixed-line telephone network division, is charged with 58 counts of breach of trust.

In closing arguments at the Munich state court, prosecutor Nora Kaiser said that the defendant had contributed to clearing up the case, but said that did not take away from the "breaches of his obligations as a regular businessman."

Kaiser called for him to be given a two-year suspended prison sentence and a $284,000 fine.

Defense lawyer Uwe von Saalfeld urged the court to give his client "a mild punishment" but did not offer specific details.

Prosecutors allege that he set up a complex network of shell corporations that he used to siphon off company money over several years. The money allegedly was used as bribes to help secure contracts abroad by paying off would-be suppliers, government officials, potential customers.

Siekaczek acknowledged when the trial opened in May that he set up slush funds.

"Naturally it was known to me and everyone that we pay commissions to secure orders," he testified then, adding that they had been handled "very discreetly" with only a very small circle of people in the know.

Siekaczek testified that his superiors had told him to create a new payment system after paying bribes abroad became a criminal offense in Germany in the late 1990s. He said judicial authorities had been on the trail of a previously established system of accounts in Austria.

Siemens has acknowledged dubious payments of up to 1.3 billion euros ($2 billion) in the wider corruption case uncovered last year.