Defects are triggering a wave of recalls

The company submitted the report to the Japanese government after a fatal accident in 2002.

Ex-chairman Takashi Usami and two other executives have denied allegations made in a Japanese court that they knew these trucks had faulty wheel hubs.

Separately, the firm wants to recall 392,093 trucks, defects on which have been blamed for personal injury cases.

Truck faults

The current court case centres on a report Mitsubishi filed with the government following the death of a 29-year-old woman in the port city of Yokohama, south west of Tokyo.

The woman died after being hit by a flying wheel which had come off a Mitsubishi trailer truck. Her two sons were also hurt in the incident.

The Japanese transport ministry asked the firm to file a report on the cause of the 2002 accident and the necessary safety actions that needed to be taken.

Prosecutors allege that the former executives knew that a fault with wheel hubs on the trucks may have caused the accident but they and the company decided to hide the fact in their report to the government.

"It is not true that we filed a false report," Mr Usami told Yokohama Summary court. "The strength of the hub was not questioned. There was no cover up."

At the time of the accident, Mr Usami was vice president of Mitsubishi Motors and led the group's trucking division.

Quality control

When the company spun off its truck and bus-making division in 2003, Mr Usami became chairman of the new company Mitsubishi Fuso.

US-German car giant DaimlerChrysler later snapped up a 65% stake in the firm.

Two other former officials charged in the case - Akio Hanawa, 63, and Tadashi Koshikawa, 61 - also held positions at the time of the accident, with Mr Koshikawa in charge of quality control.

Mitsubishi Motors has been hit hard by revelations that the group and its truck division Mitsubishi Fuso had been hiding defects to prevent product recalls.

Mitsubishi Fuso has said that it takes "the indictment of our former executives very seriously".

Separately, official figures show that the sale of Mitsubishi brand vehicles plunged by 56.8% in August to 2,946 units following a 60% drop a month earlier.

According to the Japan Mini-Vehicle Association, sales in affiliate Mitsubishi Fuso dropped 9.6% to 5,942 vehicles following a 29.9% drop in July.

Last month, Mitsubishi Motors revealed first-quarter operating losses of 31.71 billion yen ($285m; �156.5m) for the three months to June.