FRANKFURT, Feb 12: German prosecutors said on Tuesday they have extended their probe into suspected stock price manipulation at sports car maker Porsche.

The investigation had now been widened to include “everyone who sat on the supervisory board of Porsche’s holding company between March and October 2008, as well as a former employee,” a spokesman for prosecutors said. That means that Ferdinand Piech, supervisory board chief of Europe’s biggest carmaker Volkswagen, Porsche supervisory board boss Wolfgang Porsche and works council head Uwe Hueck are now implicated in the probe.

The accused are being investigated on suspicion of “complicity to manipulate the market,” the spokesman added. In December, prosecutors charged Porsche’s former chief executive Wendelin Wiedeking and former finance chief Holger Haerter with manipulating Porsche’s share price in connection with the — ultimately unsuccessful — attempt to take over Volkswagen. Wiedeking and Haerter allegedly made false statements in public with regard to Porsche’s intentions in 2008.—AFP