Le Nouvelliste says man has been under medical care for psychiatric problems
SION, SWITZERLAND – A Sion judge was attacked and suffered multiple injuries Saturday night 28 January in the city centre. Le Nouvelliste reported Monday morning that a man who has been under medical treatment and who suffers severe psychiatric problems has been arrested and taken to a special detention centre. Police confirmed at 11:00 Monday that a 29-year-old Swiss German who lives in Valais sought medical treatment Sunday morning for injuries he suffered Saturday night. He told medical staff that he was the man who attacked the judge, and he then turned himself into police.
The attack appeared in some way linked to the “Luca” case that has received heavy media attention, particularly in Valais, because the attacker called out “Luca, Luca” and was reported by the judge to say he would pay the magistrate back in kind.
Luca Mongelli is a youth who was badly injured, the victim of a bizarre and vicious attack in Veysonnaz in 2002. The case received heavy media attention at the time and, recently made it back into the news. The boy, age 7 at the time, was found injured and naked, in the snow, in Veysonnaz, after taking the family dog, Rocky, for a walk with Luca’s younger brother Marco. Luca was able to say immediately after the attack that humans had done this to him, but legal and medical analyses at the time showed Rocky to be the attacker, and a drawing done by the very young Marco, as well as his words at the time, pointed to the 30 kg 7-month-old dog. The case was suspended in 2004 and the family has called publicly for further investigation. Luca today is tetraplegic as a result of his injuries.
The Valais attorney general held a press conference on the affair 26 January (details below).
Saturday’s attack was violent and wrongly evoked the Luca case
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – A looming battle over the extradition of Russian hacker Vladimir Zdorovenin, who is accused by the US of financial cyber crimes, has Zurich caught in the middle. Zdorovenin, 54, and his son Kirill, had been sought by the US for four years before the father was arrested in Zurich 27 March 2011. His son remains at large.
Switzerland, in response to an American extradition requested, handed him over to US authorities after examining the case, and he was flown to New York Monday 16 January. Moscow has angrily said that the extradition was illegal, blaming the US secret services. The exact circumstances of the arrest and the extradition request have not been revealed and Swiss authorities have not commented on the case.
The pair’s names have not been on Interpol’s Red List of suspects wanted internationally.
The Zdorovenins were accused of a number of crimes in a sealed indictment in Manhattan in May 2007. This week the court said that they are charged with 9 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, computer fraud, aggravated identity theft, and securities fraud, according to Russian media.
The Voice of Russia cites Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich as saying that “it wasn’t the first time the US had arrested Russians in third countries under a doubtful pretext and by using provocative methods”, with Lukashevich accusing Washington of applying extraterritorial legislation in its dealings with Russian citizens.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 24-year-old German man arrested in Los Angeles has been charged with 37 counts of arson in relation to a spate of more than 50 fires, mostly cars, in the past week. Harry Burkhardt is also wanted in Germany on suspicion of arson in Neukirchen, near Frankfurt: the family home burned down in October 2011.
Burkhardt was evicted from a US courtroom after his mother was arrested for a traffic offense 28 December and appeared in court, where her son made a scene and shouted obscenities at Americans. Her arrest resulted in Germany being alerted; she is wanted on several counts of fraud in the pair’s home country.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The eldest son of Muammar Qaddafi, and presumed heir to the regime before it fell, Seif al-Islam, was arrested Saturday 19 November in southern Libya, an official from the NTC (National Transitional Council) told reporters. He was reportedly flown to a detention centre after it was secured. Three others were arrested with him in the city of Zintan during the night, without incidence, according to Aljazeera. There are conflicting reports about whether or not his convoy was heading for Niger.
Al-Islam, 39 and educated in Britain, created a Geneva-based foundation whose management resigned in February, essentially closing it down (Ed. note: The foundation no longer has a web site).
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A high speed chase on the A1 autoroute from Gland to Morges at 01:00 Monday 31 October resulted in the arrest of four men from Lyons, France. The group was breaking and entering a shop in Rolle when police were contacted via the 117 number. Several police and highway patrol units were set up and the car, with French plates, was spotted in Gland, heading for the autoroute.
The car was chased by police at speeds up to 150 kph, with the car ignoring police warnings to stop and the driver swerving several times to prevent the police from overtaking. At the Morges Est A1 exit two patrol cars were set up to block their path and the four were caught. The men have admitted to the facts in the case, say police.
Rolle has recently been the site of other robberies, notably jewelry shops.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson’s office has not publicly reacted to a call from Amnesty International 12 October to arrest former US President George W Bush when he visits Canada next week. The group filed what Alex Neve, its secretary-general, calls a lengthy brief with the justice ministry detailing Bush’s admissions of having authorized torture on terror suspects.
“Neve said many will argue that arresting Mr Bush is unrealistic because the United States is a close and powerful ally or that the crisis after 9/11 required extraordinary measures,” reports The Globe & Mail. “‘None of those arguments justify inaction under international law,’ he said.”
The Star reports that Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has accused Amnesty of “‘cherry picking’ its accusations against Bush, and mounting an ideologically motivated ‘stunt’ that ‘helps explain why so many respected human rights advocates have abandoned Amnesty International,’” but the Toronto paper goes on to list a number of other groups that are encouraging Canada to do what similar groups in the US have failed to do, to call Bush to account for torture. Canada has “ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and the Canadian Criminal Code says that anyone suspected of torture can be arrested and subject to criminal investigation when he enters the country,” The Star points out.
SION, SWITZERLAND – A man who threatened a bank employee in Anzère, a resort in canton Valais, with a knife as the worker left the bank, then robbed the bank of several thousand francs at noon Monday 10 October, has been captured, say Valais police.
The man released the employee once he had the loot and the banker promptly contacted police, who put in place a large manhunt, coordinating it with local transport authorities.
The man was arrested not long after on a train from Sion in the direction of Martigny, cash in hand. Police say the stolen money appears to be all there.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The banking sector is coming under pressure in Switzerland, with some calls for UBS chairman Oswald Gruebel to resign following the arrest of a 31-year-old rogue trader Thursday 16 September in London. The man was charged Friday with abuse of his position and fraudulent accounting. He is being investigated for losing more than $2 billion for UBS.
The bank tipped off police, who arrested the young Ghanaian at his office. The man is charged with two cases of fraud, one in 2008-2009 and another that began in January 2011 and was run until the day before his arrest. According to TSR, he cried when the charges were read out in the London court.
Moody’s, late Thursday 16 September, said it has placed UBS’s AA3 long-term note under review, and it is studying the implications of the loss on the investment bank’s capacity to increase earnings with an appropriate risk level.
Martin Wolf at the Financial Times wrote a thank you to UBS saying that he could not think of a better way to illustrate the “unregulatable risks to which investment banks are exposed.” Wolf is a member of the UK’s Independent Commission on Banking.
The Wall Street Journal reports that several members working at the desk of the London trader have been suspended while the fraud is investigated.
The bank discovered it late Wednesday, contacted London police shortly after midnight and the man was arrested during the night. The bank is being accused by some observers with its supervisors taking too long to realize that a large amount of money was being traded without authorization.
UBS shares fell nearly 11 percent in a market that rose 0.29 percent. By Friday afternoon’s closing in Zurich they were trading at 10.38. They were trading around 12 at the start of September.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Zurich police say one woman was killed and a second is in critical condition with several bullet wounds after a man opened fire in front of the town hall in Pfäffikon, near Zurich, shortly before noon, reports news agency ATS. A man has been arrested but no further details are available.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A man who had been sexually accosting, but without force, girls from 6 to 11 years old since 2002, has been behind bars since January, Geneva police announced Thursday. The 38-year-old has admitted to committing 60 sexual acts, usually asking the children for assistance to urinate and then masturbating.
The man, who lives in Ain, in France, operated mainly on Wednesdays and Saturdays, in Versoix, Meyrin and Lignon. He was unknown to police on both sides of the border, which made it difficult to find him, despite a long investigation and traces of DNA left at some scenes. It was known that he drove a black 4×4, but it took new evidence after another crime committed in January, to track him down. He worked as a building manager.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Goran Hadzic, 52, the last of the 14 Serb leaders accused of war crimes during the Croatian war who was still at large has been arrested. He was taken in at 08:35 Tuesday morning 20 July in a forest near the village of village Krusedol in the Fruska Gora region about 100 km northwest of Belgrade, said Vladimir Vukcevic Wednesday, confirming local media reports Tuesday. Vukcevic is the Serbian prosecutor for war crimes.
Hadzic was carrying a pistol at the time of his arrest but did not resist, according to Vukcevic. He had been in hiding since 2004. The news was announced by Serbia’s president, Boris Tadic, who said that Hadzic was not arrested in an Orthodox monastery as local media had reported earlier.
The European Union promptly congratulated Serbia, which has been accused until recently of lagging in its efforts to find the accused former leaders. The news is likely to speed up Serbia’s entry into the European Union.
Hadzic’s name is linked to the murder of 250 Croatians and other non-Serbs who had taken refuge in the Vukovar Hospital in November 1991 before they were rounded up and shot. He is accused of attempting the forced transfer out of the region of some 27,000 people.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland 6 June saw CHF1.5 million returned to it, money that had been put into an account blocked in and overseen by Germany, as the result of an agreement between the Swiss government and the Qaddafi regime in Libya. Switzerland has been holding discussions with Germany for some weeks about returning the money: Bern has spent more than CHF3 million in aid to Libyan citizens since the outbreak of the conflict in their country in February 2011, the Swiss Federal Council said Wednesday morning 8 June.
The CHF1.5m was paid by Switzerland after an investigation in Geneva into a leaked photo failed to turn up the culprit who gave the document to the Tribune de Geneve in the summer of 2008. The newspaper published the photo of Hannibal Qaddafi after he was arrested at Geneva’s five-star President Wilson hotel, for attacking one of his employees.
Libya then filed a formal complaint.
“Switzerland agreed to pay compensation to cover the cost of the proceedings and legal fees, in the event that the competent Geneva authorities were unable to find and punish the guilty party or parties,” Bern notes. “This agreement was the condition for the release in June 2010 of Swiss citizen Max Goeldi, who was being detained in Libya.”
©2011 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
Former Egyptian leader Hosne Mubarak was hospitalized Tuesday 13 April for a heart attack, and shortly afterwards he and two sons were put under arrest but face different charges, local media report. The 82-year-old former president, who has been under house arrest since late March, was the target of a 15-day warrant issued by the prosecutor general to determine is he ordered weapons used against protesters before his regime fell in February 2011. His sons are being investigated for corruption.
Links to other sites: Aljazeera, Voice of Russia, Sky News
The French Ambassador to Cote d’Ivoire Jean-Marc Simon has confirmed that Laurent Gbagbo was arrested Monday 11 April and moved from his residence in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire to the Golf Hotel that serves as the headquarters of his rival for the presidency, Alassane Ouattara. Details are still sketchy, Monday afternoon, but France denies it took part in the arrest, ascribing this to Republican forces loyal to Ouattara.
Links to other sites: Le Monde, Fre, Reuters Africa
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Police in Geneva say they have arrested a 29-year-old Swiss man for murder, after working closely with Vaud police to find the suspect. The man was questioned Wednesday 16 March and then taken to prison where he is being detained as a suspect in the killing of a 26-year-old Serb.
The man died 2 March in front of 4, rue Tronchin, despite emergency medical treatment, after being hit with a blunt instrument.
More than 60 plants were seized - Photo GE Police
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - It’s been a bad week for cannabis growers in the region, with a man arrested last week near Nyon and his cultivation setup seized. Tuesday 8 March a grower caught by police in Geneva.
A 45-year-old Vaud man, resident in Geneva, was taken in after police found 61 plants and a complete growing system with air filters, growing lights and more in his cellar, an area supposedly set up for music.
He was intercepted after a wait of several hours at the premises, following a tip-off from within the marijuana production community, say police.
Police also seized 6.7 g of marijuana on the premises.
Unclear if money still in German account
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Swiss media reports Friday morning on a payment by Switzerland to Hannibal Qaddafi, son of the Libyan leader, show some confusion over whether or not the Qaddafi clan actually picked up the CHF1.5 million.
The payment to the younger son of Qaddafi was agreed to by both countries as part of a deal to retrieve the kidnapped Swiss businessman Max Goeldi and as reparation for damages for a photo published by the Tribune de Geneve of Hannibal Qaddafi after his arrest in Geneva for assaulting his staff at a hotel.
The agreement stipulated that the money would be paid if, once an investigation was completed, the person who leaked the photo from the police department in Geneva was identified. In fact, it appears that the payment was made before the investigation was completed.
The two countries also agreed that the money must be used for humanitarian purposes.
The Swiss foreign affairs ministry late Thursday 3 March told Swiss news agency ATS that to its knowledge, shortly before the Libyan protests began in February, the money was still in the German account where it was placed in the summer of 2010, confirming a report earlier in the day by the Tribune de Geneve.
Background, GenevaLunch
Links to other sites: Tribune de Geneve (Fr), TSR (Fr)
The strange case of Carlina White, who was kidnapped at the age of 19 days and who last week, 23 years later, found her real family, could pose thorny legal questions. The woman suspected of kidnapping her from a hospital in Harlem, New York, and then raising her, has been arrested in Connecticut for violating parole. She was on parole after being convicted of suspected embezzlement. The statute of limitations for kidnap charges in New York might have run out, police there say, and the possibility of the federal government taking on the case is being reviewed.
WikiLeaks founder to appear in Westminster to answer sex charges from Sweden
London, England (GenevaLunch) - Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, has been arrested in London, after turning himself into a police for a 09:30 appointment Tuesday morning 7 December. Assange has been in hiding since he was in Geneva in early November, after Swedish police announced they were looking for him in relation to the charges, brought by two women. He is expected to appear before a judge in Westminster later, but the process of deciding if there are grounds to extradite him could take months, British media report.
Akhmed Zakayev, an exiled Chechen leader, has been arrested on arrival in Poland, where he was to attend a two-day conference of the Chechen community in exile, despite having been warned of the risk of arrest. He was arrested 16 September while on his way with his lawyer to the public prosecutor’s office. Polish authorities said they had no alternative because Russia had issued an international warrant for his arrest. Russia has asked for his extradition.
Zakayev has been living in London since 2003 after being granted asylum because of the danger to his life if he was extradited to Russia.
Links to other sites: AFP, ITAR-Tass, Radio Free Europe
US Justice officials say Faisal Shahzad, who was arrested Monday 3 May, has admitted to planting an explosive device in a car in Times Square, and told them he was trained in Pakistan. He was arrested in New York after the Emirates flight to Dubai that he was on was asked to turn around and return as it taxied down the runway for takeoff. Shahzad’s name had been on a no-fly list but he had managed to order his ticket while en route to the airport, pay cash for it, make it through JFK Airport security and board the plane. Customs officials found his name on the boarding list shortly before takeoff and turned the plane around. A Justice Department official says there was never any danger he would have left the country, however.
He will be charged with terrorism across national borders, according to the Justice Department.
Links to other sites: US Justice Department and BBC, New York Times
US federal agents and police have taken a man into custody in relation to the attempted bombing of Times Square in New York City 2 May. Faizal Shahzad, a 30-year-old naturalized US citizen originally from Pakistan, was boarding a plane for Dubai when he was arrested. He recently returned from a trip to Pakistan, and a US Justice Department official said in an announcement that they had “gathered significant additional evidence”, which led to his arrest. The charges were not revealed. The man had recently paid cash for the Nissan Pathfinder that was used in the failed attack.
Links to other sites: New York Times, US Justice Department
Swiss newspaper says canton condemning it without justice taking its course
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – Canton Geneva late Wednesday at a press conference confirmed through its lawyer that it is ready to pay a fair sum to Hannibal Qadaffi, compensating him for moral damage because a state employee appears to have been involved in leaking a police mug shot of him to the Tribune de Genève. The state noted that the action was “deplorable” and completely unacceptable, and that it will also sanction the employee, if the investigation into the leak makes it possible to determine who supplied the photo.
The state, in filing its “Memorandum” with the court hearing Qadaffi’s civil suit, filed against the canton and the newspaper in December 2009, asks the court to determine how much of the sum should be borne by Geneva and how much by the newspaper. But Tribune editor-in-chief Pierre Ruetschi Wednesday noon wrote a scathing comment on the papers the canton filed with the court.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The founder of Fastweb, Italian company purchased to much fanfare by Swisscom in 2007, has been arrested in Rome. Silvio Scaglia, one of Italy’s wealthiest men and for several years the darling of high tech Italy, was arrested as he returned from a business trip abroad. He was taken to Rebibbia prison for questioning over his role in a fiscal fraud and money laundering ring that authorities say involves more than 50 Italian business people.
Scaglia issued a press release earlier saying that he is not guilty and is anxious to be interviewed by authorities in order to clear up the matter.
Fastweb came to international business attention in 2007 when Scaglia pushed it to the forefront of peer-to-peer web TV.
Links to other sites: Swisscom, TSR (Fre), Wall Street Journal
Paris, France (GenevaLunch) – The arrest in France of Sosthene Munyemana at the request of Rwanda, which seeks his extradition to be tried for war crimes, may indicate a shift in France’s attitude, reports the CS Monitor. He is a Hutu and doctor who has been living in France since 1994, one of scores of prominent Hutus who were given refuge by France after the Rwandan genocide that killed some 800,000 Hutus and Tutsis. The Rwandan government and international investigators have sought their return to stand trial.
Sosthene Munyemana, age 45, has been working as an emergency room doctor in Bordeaux, where he was arrested. He denies the charges.
Links to other sites: CS Monitor, Interpol, Times, UK
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© Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Film director Roman Polanski could be released on bail for CHF4.5 million, the Swiss Federal Criminal high court ruled Wednesday 25 November, noting that the amount of money put up plus other security measures are adequate to cover the risk he will flee. The court has asked for his identity papers and he has been told to remain home with electronic surveillance while the US request for extradition is examined, a process that could take some weeks.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The man suspected of aiding terrorism who was arrested by French police 8 October was charged in Paris Monday 12 October and it appears likely he will remain in detention. Internet surveillance of terrorist groups led investigators to e-mail exchanges the 32-year-old man had with terrorist groups. Swiss television TSR quotes a source close to the man’s file who says that he had not moved to the stage of being involved in planning attacks but that he had shown his interest and desire to do so.
Update 12:50 Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – EPFL, Lausanne’s Polytechnic institute, said Monday morning 12 October that it has blocked all computer access to an area where a possible terrorist suspect has been working, but it cannot yet confirm that the person under suspicion is indeed the person arrested 8 October in France. If so, he has been giving courses once a week at the university although he has recently been off work on sick leave. Britain’s Telegraph reported late Sunday night 11 October that the unnamed man arrested last Thursday south of Lyons, France on terrorism charges was working on projects at both Cern and EPFL. EPFL has not been given a name by French police. The university and Swiss Federal Police say they are ready to help French police, but no official requests have been made.
Cern LHC tunnel that runs under Geneva and neighbouring France
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Cern (European Centre for Nuclear Research) confirmed over the weekend that a man arrested with his brother in the south of France Thursday 8 October has worked at Cern since 2003 as a contract employee for an outside company, not as a Cern employee. “His work did not bring him into contact with anything that could be used for terrorism,” the organization says in a press release, noting that “Cern is a particle physics research laboratory whose research addresses fundamental questions about the universe. None of our research has potential for military application.”
French authorities say the two men, whose identity has not been released, were taken into custody in Vienne, south of Lyons.
