ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Rudolf Elmer, ex-Bank Julius Baer manager who brought charges against his former employer for meancing him, dropped them Thursday 17 November when he appeared in court to appeal his earlier sentencing on a number of charges. A Zurich court ruled against his appeal but this was later overturned by the Swiss federal high court.
ATS Swiss news agency says he would not say if he was offered money by his ex-employer to drop the charges, and that he continued to say the bank had menaced him.
He was given a suspended sentence in January 2011 for threats and theft related to banking data he stole several years ago. He appealed the fines and suspended sentence he was given, and the Swiss federal court ordered the Zurich court to accept his appeal. Today, in court, AST reports, he became bogged down in contradictory statements about emails and faxes related to the theft.
Shortly after being released in January he was re-arrested on charges of breaking Switzerland’s bank secrecy laws, related to sharing data with WikiLeaks. The arrest followed an appearance in public with Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, to talk about sharing the documents.
Elmer still faces these charges.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, 2 November lost his high court appeal to avoid extradition to Sweden. His lawyers say they will decide in the next 14 days whether or not to appeal to Britain’s supreme court. Assange is wanted by Sweden for questioning over charges of sexual assault filed by two women in relation to an August 2010 visit by Assange to Stockholm.
ABC News in Australia reports that “his mother Christine told the Australian Associated Press news agency on Wednesday that her son was now ‘even closer to a US extradition or rendition. If [the Australian people] don’t stand up for Julian, he will go to the US and he will be tortured,’” she said.
Links to other sites: ABC News, Australia, Guardian, UK, Radio Sweden
BASEL, SWITZERLAND – A 32-year-old woman who shot her husband in March 2011 was found guilty of homicide by negligence and sent home without sentencing. The judge declared she had suffered enough in losing her husband.
She shot her husband in their apartment while he was showing her how to handle the gun, of which she was afraid. The previous day, while high on cannabis, he had put a bullet in the chamber, most likely unintentionally and while distracted, the court concluded. His wife was looking for documents and her husband called to her to hand him the gun that was kept in the same place. She jokingly pointed it at him and said “Hands up!” and he joined in the game, taking the pistol and holding it to his head, telling her there was nothing to be afraid of, while explaining how it worked.
He assured her the gun was empty but when, under his instructions, she pulled the trigger, it went off, killing him.
The woman told the judge she had had faith in her husband’s word, but the judge said where guns are concerned confidence in another person is not enough: pointing a gun at someone or at one’s head is an act that lacks common sense.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Eleven people are dead and at least 76 injured following the explosion of a bomb in Delhi, India Wednesday 7 September. HuJI, a Bangladeshi terrorist group earlier “in an email demanded that Afzal Guru’s death sentence should be repealed immediately else the group would target major high courts and the Supreme Court”, reports the Times of India. The group, which reportedly has ties to al Qaeda, has now claimed responsibility for the attack, where a bomb was put inside a briefcase left at the reception of one part of the country’s high court.
Guru is a prisoner, condemned for an attack on parliament.
Several hundred people go through the reception area every day.
Links to other sites: Reuters, Times of India
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The three anarchists, or “ecoterrorists”, who were caught just 3 km short of their bombing target, a new IBM nano research centre near Zurich, were handed the maximum sentences Friday by the high court in Bellinzona, Ticino. Two Italians in their 30s and a 26-year-old Swiss man were sentenced to more than three-and-a-half years each, although the time they have spent in preventive custody since April 2010 can be counted as part of their time.
Canton Zurich is responsible for overseeing their prison time.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Muammar Qadaffi is back in the headlines, with the International Criminal Court in the Hague issuing an arrest warrant for him on charges of crimes against humanity, Monday 27 June, and US Senator Mike Turner sparking debate by telling Foreign Policy magazine that Nato is trying to kill the Libyan leader. South African leader Jacob Zuma has objected strongly, reports allAfrica: “The intention of the United Nations Security Council authorizing military action against Libya was ‘to protect the Libyan people’ and ‘not to authorize a campaign for regime change or political assassination,’ President Jacob Zuma of South Africa has told fellow members of an African Union panel on Libya.”
Geneva-based IOM (International Organization for Migration) reports that while 44,000 Chadians have managed to flee Libya since the fighting began, scores are currently stranded in the desert after six weeks, with little access to food or water and an emergency effort to try to get supplies to them got underway Tuesday 28 June.
“Thousands of stranded migrants, including large numbers of women and children, are in desperate need of immediate food, water, shelter and medical assistance after having spent many weeks living in the open in the southern Libyan desert, an IOM assessment team has found as the Organization looks into ways to evacuate them to safety. So far, more than 2,000 Chadian migrants have been discovered by IOM in Gatroun and Sebha, though these figures could grow as the team continues with its assessment in the area.”
The head of the assessment team says that conditions for the group “are brutal in the desert heat with no protection from the sun, wind or sand and no access to water, food or sanitation.”
Unusually large numbers of women and children, elderly signals long-time labourers fleeing
Canton Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A secondary teacher who was dismissed in October 2010 after a dispute with the Stalden school authorities over a crucifix, will remain suspended, according to a Valais cantonal tribunal judgement issued 28 January. It did not return a verdict on the dismissal itself.
Valentin Abgottspon removed a crucifix from a classroom and refused to put it back when ordered to do so by school authorities. The man cited a Federal Court decision in defense of his right not to have crucifixes in rooms in which he teaches.
The Swiss Bishops Conference sees the case differently, saying in a statement that it considers removing the crucifix a measure of “intolerance incompatible with the freedom of religion and conscience.”
The teacher dismissed in Valais, who is also president of the cantonal section of the Freethinkers Association of Switzerland, which advocates for secularism and the separation of church and state, is seeking employment.
Over 500 people have joined in a Facebook campaign of “solidarity” with Abgottson.
Links to other sites: Le Nouvelliste (Fr), Swissinfo
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Monday 20 September is a holiday in much of Switzerland, the Jeûne Fédéral. GenevaLunch, based in Vaud, will be providing limited news coverage. Swiss weekend news highlights include:
SOCIETY – Four people are dead and 17 injured after a woman went on a shooting spree in Loerrach, Germany, near Basel, in a family dispute, setting off an explosion that provoked a fire. Media reports are contradictory, but it appears that the woman shot her former companion, their child and shot at others in a nearby hospital before she was shot dead by police in a shootout (Reuters).
SPORTS – Skier Didier Defago, on crutches Sunday 19 September after surgery for torn knee ligaments Friday, told journalists he has no intention of quitting. The 32-year-old Olympic downhill champion crashed last Wednesday during training in Zermatt, when the tips of his skis touched as he was going 110 kph.
PEOPLE – Russian billionnaire’s Geneva divorce battle now includes one of Florida’s most colourful pieces of property, reports Forbes magazine. Dmitri Rybolovlev, number 79 on Forbes’s list of the world’s wealthiest people, was sued for divorce in Geneva by his wife Elena in 2008. She has now asked the Swiss court to enforce a March court order, according to Forbes, to freeze an 18-bedroom, $48 million (assessed price) home she claims her fertilizer businessman husband is trying to hide behind business structures. The house was sold, reportedly to the couple, by Donald Trump who bought it from another magnate, Abe Gossman, who later went bankrupt.
POLITICS – Switzerland’s efforts to free two Swiss businessmen, Rachid Hamdani and Max Goeldi, have been shrouded in secrecy, but 19 September NZZ newspaper in Zurich reported that a Swiss soldier made a reconnaissance mission to Libya at one point. The newspaper bases its report on a confidential government memo it obtained. The two men were were imprisoned for 1.5 and 2 years respectively by Libya, with Hamdani freed in February 2010 and Goeldi in June 2010. The soldier reportedly traveled as a civilian, with a valid visa.
GENEVA RENTS – Geneva is regularly cited as one of the most expensive cities, with high rent playing a key role, but too much is too much, the president of the finance commission told the Tribune de Geneve, which reports that the justice department is paying CHF196,000 a month rent for a 2,226m2 building on the rue de l’Athenée in central Geneva. It houses, among others, the tribunal for rents and leases.
POLITICS – The US Justice Department announced Friday 17 September that one of the seven people charged with using UBS accounts for tax fraud had been sentenced to the longest prison term yet for such an offense. It also noted that he has been fined $4.4 million for not filing his FBAR forms, “an amount equal to 50 percent of the highest value of his UBS accounts as of December 31 for the years in which he failed to file FBAR.” The lengthy Justice Department news release notes: “Federico Hernandez, a Manhattan-based financial adviser, was sentenced today to 12 months’ imprisonment for hiding $8.8 million from the IRS by using sham companies to conceal his ownership of secret Swiss bank accounts held at UBS AG. Hernandez was one of seven US taxpayers charged on April 15, 2010, with filing false tax returns and related crimes for hiding Swiss bank accounts from the IRS. Hernandez pled guilty that same day to filing five false tax returns. In addition to the sentence of imprisonment, US District Judge Denny Chin imposed a sentence of six months’ home confinement. Hernandez also agreed to pay a civil penalty of $4.4 million. The sentence imposed on Hernandez is the longest term of imprisonment to date for hiding a UBS bank account from the IRS.
A judge in Malaysia has ruled in favour of continuing the criminal case against opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who is accused of sodomizing a former aide, in 2008. Homosexual activity is illegal in Malaysia; he could face up to 20 years in prison. Ibrahim had argued that the prosecution’s case is politically motivated and has been compromised because the former aide, the key witness in the trial, has reportedly had a romantic relationship with a junior member of the prosecution team. The judge agrees that the two appear to have had such a relationship, but also agrees with the prosecution that the junior member of the team, now dismissed, had no access to sensitive documents or information.
Links to other sites: BBC, Bloomberg/Business Week, Daily Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia (ed. note: a daily not connected to the opposition leader)
Bern goes to court over Geneva police leak
Swiss parliament in session Photo ©Swiss parliament
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – The Libyan affair continues in Switzerland, even if the businessmen held hostage by Libya have returned home: the Federal Council agreed Thursday to go to court over the leak from Geneva’s police department of a police photo of Hannibal Qadaffi.
Hannibal is the son of Libya’s leader, arrested in Geneva in July 2008 on charges of abusing his staff at a city hotel. A nearly year-long investigation in Geneva has failed to turn up the person responsible for the leak.
People suspected of or charged with a crime are protected by Swiss privacy laws, but the photo of Hannibal Qadaffi was run by the Tribune de Geneve newspaper.
An arbitration panel was agreed to by both countries as part of the agreement that also saw business Max Goeldi allowed to return quickly to Switzerland, once the agreement was signed in early June. The panel will look into the circumstances surrounding the arrest of Hannibal Qadaffi and his wife Aline, in Geneva.
Such a panel had been part of an earlier agreement between then-Swiss president Hans-Rudolf Merz and Libyan authorities, but it never went beyond the two countries’ naming their representatives.
The same two arbiters have been named: Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who is British, for Switzerland, and Sreenivasa Pammaraju Rao, who is Indian, for Libya. The two must agree on a third person to be president of the panel, within 30 days, and the three then have 60 days to make decisions on the final arbitrage.
Film director’s request to remain outside the US turned down by California court
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Film director Roman Polanski’s request to stay in Switzerland while his 30-year-old court case is concluded was turned down by a California appeals court Thursday, without the court issuing an opinion. He fled the US before he was sentenced in 1978 on a charge of unlawful sexual intercourse. He was arrested at Zurich airport in September 2009 after the US made a new extradition request.
Switzerland must now decide if it will extradite him, but if he is sentenced to less than six months he is unlikely to be extradited, the justice ministry in Bern noted in March.
Links to other sites: Los Angeles Times, swissinfo
Alexander McQueen, British designer whose next show was to open in March, committed suicide, a British court examining his 11 February death was told. He left a suicide note and was reportedly inconsolable over his mother’s death, according to the Times, UK. He died on the eve of her funeral.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Federal Council, Switzerland’s cabinet, has stepped into the debate over a ruling by the Swiss Administrative Tribunal, announced 11 January, that the Swiss banking supervisory body had no legal right to tell bank UBS to hand client names to US tax authorities. The Council made it clear 13 January that it played a key role in the decision by Finma, the banking authority, to agree the names should be given, outside the usual procedures called for by a bilateral judicial assistance treaty with the United States
Nigeria’s Vice-president Goodluck Jonathan has been given presidential powers by the country’s top court, putting him in charge of Africa’s most populous nation. Thousands of Nigerians earlier protested in the streets of the capital, Abuja, at the continued absence of their president. President Yar’Adua has been under treatment in Saudi Arabia since November for a heart condition and had not spoken to the nation until he did a radio interview 12 January, in a feeble voice. He left without turning over his power to Jonathan. Jonathan, who has chaired government meetings, has been unable as deputy to sign legislation, including budget papers. The Times, UK, notes that “The judgment could have serious repercussions in Nigeria, which shook off decades of military rule only in 1999. It is an ethnically diverse country of 150 million people, roughly split between northern Muslims and southern Christians, which has been hit by sporadic outbursts of inter-communal violence.”
BMW-Oracle says Alinghi's sails not made in Switzerland
Update 18:35 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – America’s Cup challenger BMW-Oracle and defender Alinghi are set to go back to court in New York after negotiations broke down in Singapore 12 January. The two sailing teams and their boats are in Valencia, Spain to contest sailing’s oldest and most prestigious race, a best of three meets that begins 8 February. Final details of the rules for the races are under discussion, but a sticking point lately has been the source of Alinghi’s sails.
BMW-Oracle maintains that Alinghi’s sail, made in the USA, violates the Deed of Gift’s stipulation that the boat be entirely built in the country the team represents, in this case Switzerland, home of the Société Nautique de Genève (SNG). The Deed of Gift is the document that lays down the ground rules for the 159-year-old race. Alinghi says bluntly that BMW-Oracle has it wrong.
The US Army Corp of Engineers lost a court case brought by six plaintiffs over damages from 2005 hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The judge ruled that the Army Corps for 40 years had not maintained a shipping channel between the city and the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in widespread flooding in two areas, Lower 9th Ward and St Bernard Parish. Five of the six were awarded damages from $100,000 to $350,000, but the ruling will now mean compensation for hundreds of others in the two districts.
Links to other sites: CNN, Times-Picayune, New Orleans
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Manuel Echeverría, the head of Optimal in Geneva, faces criminal charges for his role in the Madoff ponzi scheme. Optimal is Spanish bank Santander’s hedge fund arm, based in Geneva. Echeverria, who left the company some months ago after 19 years, according to the Wall Street Journal, becomes “one of the first and most senior wealth managers known to be facing criminal charges in connection with the Madoff scandal”, according to the Financial Times (FT). The newspaper, which has seen court documents, says the charges were filed in August but have just become known now, with Echeverría losing a legal bid to disqualify asset manager Franck Berlamont in the case. Five Aurelia asset managers are implicated in the case, says the FT. The company lost $800 million of its clients’ money to Madoff, Reuters reported in April 2009.
Click on image to view larger (image: Swiss Confederation)
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The number of disputes over rents has fallen by more than 8 percent in the past 12 months, the federal government says, based on statistics from courts that handle the disputes. The 16,888 cases in the first six months of 2009 are nevertheless more than in any half-year period since the second half of 2003. A settlement was reached in 47.15 percent of cases. Of these, rent increases were the leading reason for the disputes, followed by leases brought to an end.
- Alinghi iD35 shakedown sail, Cup Julius Baer, Nyon 4 May 2009 (image, Carlo Borlenghi, Alinghi)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – There is a new wrinkle in the latest round of the legal battle between Geneva-based Alinghi, holder of sailing’s America’s Cup, and San Francisco-based Oracle, which has been fighting hard in the courts to change the date and rules for the next race. Alinghi is reported by Sailing World News to have filed charges with the New York Supreme Court against BMW Oracle for hiring a spy.
The papers allegedly refer to a police report where a man named Jean Antoine Bonnaveau states that he took photos for Oracle in the hills above Villeaneuve. The story is reported by Bloomberg in New York, which says that the alleged spying “continues a tradition of subterfuge in the event.”
The two teams are scheduled to appear in court tomorrow 14 May in New York, with Alinghi facing a motion from Oracle for contempt of court, charges to which it filed an opposition 11 May.
Florida, USA and Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss government has asked a court in Miami, Florida to reject demands by US tax authorities that Swiss bank UBS turn over information on 52,000 clients of the bank who are US citizens. The Swiss government says its amicus curiae brief explains its legal position: that the John Doe “fishing expedition” request flies in the face of international law and would oblige the Swiss bank to break Swiss law.
The government notes that the filing does not involve it, however, as a party in the case, but rather allows it to state its position, following US procedural law.
Update July 2009 New York, NY, USA (GenevaLunch) - The Challenger of the Record for the 33rd America’s Cup sailing race is now the GGYC (Golden Gate Yachting Club) in San Francisco, following a ruling by a judge in New York Tuesday that disqualified the Valencia-based Club Náutico Español de Vela (CNEV).
Photo, Ivo Rivero 2007, Alinghi, Dubai November 2007. Reprinted with permission.
The Spanish club had been named as the Challenger of the Record by Alinghi, the Swiss-based team that won the 32nd race in July 2007, and Valencia was selected as the home for the next race. The America’s Cup is the top event in the sailing world.
Today’s ruling is based on a technicality, that the CNEV had not held its annual regatta before becoming the Challenger of Record, Michel Hodara, chief operating officer of ACM (America’s Cup Management), which oversees the races, told GenevaLunch. Alinghi’s choice was hotly contested from the start by BMW Oracle, which was not the challenger for the 2007 race.
Emirates Team New Zealand was the Challenger of Record in July 2007, having won the Louis Vuitton race series against several other competitors. Alinghi defeated Emirates 5-2 in a very close set of races.
The judge’s decision is a blow to the Société Nautique de Genève (SNG), the yacht club that is home to Alinghi. The SNG was taken to court in August by BMW Oracle, whose home is the GGYC in California.
