Skip navigation
Newswire

Daimler- Unaware of deal with arrested ex-minister

BERLIN, July 21 (Reuters) - DaimlerChrysler said on Wednesday it had no knowledge of any consulting contract with a former minister arrested last week on suspicion of corruption. Stern magazine and state television broadcaster ARD reported on Wednesday that Holger Pfahls, a junior defence minister at the time, had received the equivalent of just over 6,000 euros for a consulting contract in 1991 with Daimler's then aerospace unit Dasa, now part of EADS .

Juergen Schrempp, currently DaimlerChrysler chief executive, was head of Dasa at the time.

"We have no knowledge of a consulting contract with Herr Dr. Pfahls," DaimlerChrysler said in a statement. Spokesmen from both EADS and the defence ministry declined to comment.

Pfahls stepped down as junior defence minister in 1992 and took a managerial post with the then Daimler-Benz AG in southeast Asia.

The 61-year-old, arrested in Paris last week, is suspected of receiving a bribe while serving under former Chancellor Helmut Kohl. German prosecutors have called for his immediate extradition. Stern cited files from an investigation by the prosecutors' office in the southern German city of Augsburg.

Richard Nemetz, a senior prosecutor in Augsburg, said the Stern report was still under examination.

Pfahls is accused of accepting a bribe of almost two million euros ($2.46 million) from weapons lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber to push through a 1991 deal to deliver armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia. He had been missing since mid-1999.