STORY: Ex-Audi boss Rupert Stadler on Tuesday (June 27) became the first former Volkswagen board member to be sentenced over the 2015 diesel scandal, commonly known as ‘dieselgate’.

He was handed a suspended sentence of one year and nine months by a Munich court for fraud by negligence.

Stadler was fined $1.2 million - which the court said will go to the state treasury and non-governmental organizations.

The sentence is in the middle of the 1.5-2 year timeframe the judge had said the former CEO would face if he confessed to the charge.

Audi and parent group Volkswagen admitted in 2015 to installing illegal software to cheat on emissions tests.

According to prosecutors, engineers manipulated engines to comply with legal exhaust emission values on the test bench but not on the road.

Stadler was accused of failing to stop the sale of the manipulated cars after the scandal became known.

In May this year, his lawyer said the ex-boss did not knowingly sell vehicles that had been manipulated - or know that buyers had been harmed.

But he recognized it was a possibility and accepted that there was a need for more care.

Stadler had previously rejected the allegations.

His trial, one of the most high profile in the aftermath of dieselgate, has been going on since 2020.