Deutsche boss fury at charges

DEUTSCHE Bank chief executive Josef Ackermann protested his innocence today as he prepared to answer fraud-related charges in one of the most sensational trials in German corporate history.

'This is the only country where people who are creating value go to court for doing so,' Ackermann, 56, told reporters before heading into court in Dusseldorf today to face charges that could see him jailed for 10 years.

Prosecutors claim Ackermann and other directors of conglomerate Mannesmann criminally approved severance packages worth a total of nearly £60m for chief executive Klaus Esser and other managers when the firm was bought by Britain's largest mobile phones operator Vodafone in 2000.

Esser today insisted he had 'acted correctly'.

Ackermann's lawyer, Eberhard Kempf who represented Barings' rogue trader Nick Leeson, claims the State's case, in which it will try to prove that shareholders were betrayed by the bonuses, is 'both costly and wrong'.

Ackermann, Klaus Zwickel, 64, - former boss of the IG Metall trades union - and four others are charged with aiding and abetting the breach of their fiduciary duty for their actions during and after the £124bn takeover.

Esser, 56, is also in the dock along with former Mannesmann personnel chief Dietmar Droste, 44, ex-supervisory board head Joachim Funk, 69, and former works council chief Jurgen Ladberg, 57.