Volkswagen Group CEO Martin Winterkorn arrives for the Volkswagen annual general shareholders' meeting on May 5, 2015 in Hanover, Germany.

Prosecutors in the German city of Braunschweig said on Monday they were pressing criminal charges against former Volkswagen Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn in connection with the carmaker's manipulation of diesel emissions testing.

Four other executives are being charged, the prosecutors office said in a statement.

VW has had to recall hundreds of thousands of cars around the world since it admitted in Sept. 2015 to installing illegal software in diesel engines to cheat strict U.S. anti-pollution tests.