Former VW CEO Winterkorn to appear before German parliamentary committee: lawmaker

BERLIN (Reuters) - Former Volkswagen Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn will appear next week before a German parliamentary committee tasked with looking into whether the government had any role in the carmaker's diesel emissions scandal, a lawmaker said.

Winterkorn, who ran Europe's largest automaker for almost nine years before he resigned days after Volkswagen's (VW) manipulations emerged in September 2015, will attend a meeting of the Bundestag's committee of inquiry on Jan. 19, lawmaker Herbert Behrens, head of the panel, told Reuters on Wednesday.

It will be Winterkorn's first public appearance before a larger audience since his resignation almost 16 months ago. German business daily Handelsblatt reported Winterkorn's plans earlier on Wednesday.

The cross-party committee of inquiry was set up last April to clarify whether the German federal government and regulators were involved in VW's manipulation or failed to contribute toward its disclosure.

VW plans to plead guilty to criminal misconduct as part of a $4.3 billion settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice and regulators confirmed by the carmaker on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Andreas Rinke; Writing by Andreas Cremer; Editing by Susan Fenton)