FRIBOURG, SWITZERLAND – A fight that broke out at the Fribourg train station at 20.20 Tuesday 15 May has left one man, a 26-year-old Tunisian asylum seeker, in critical condition, say Fribourg police. Five men, all African asylum seekers, were arrested, but a sixth man fled the scene. Police are trying to identify the missing person and to piece together details of the incident. The cause of the fight has not been made public.
Two police officers were injured slightly by one of the men, who attacked them with a broken bottle before he was brought under control.
Earlier in the day the canton issued a statement saying Fribourg police had successfully drawn to a close a sting operation code-named Eden, that identified 66 North Africans living in refugee centres in the canton, who were implicated in the “flagrant” increase in a series of crimes, from robberies to car and home break-ins (up 410 percent in the first quarter of 2012 compared to the previous two years), violence and drugs, mainly in the city of Fribourg. All were either told to leave without the right to re-enter Switzerland or in the case of those applying for refugee status they were turned down.
Police insist, in their statement, that it would be wrong to generalize: most North Africans who have applied for asylum are not involved in crime.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 78-year-old Spanish man, identified by press reports as Julio, has become Geneva’s second murder of 2012.
According to Geneva police, the man was found Tuesday 10 April at 10:10, but his murder took place a few days earlier. His throat had been “significantly slit” by an unknown person who entered his apartment in Carouge.
Although the police report does not provide any further details, local press reports say the man had been living alone for the past two or three years, since his wife went to live in an assisted care facility.
The man was a friendly person, who didn’t always lock his door, neighbours told 20 Minutes and the Tribune de Genève.
Police say there are not yet any suspects in the case.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – A man was killed with a knife during a fight at the Staefa station in Zurich shortly after 18:00, city police say. Bypassers and rescue workers provided immediate help but failed to save the man. Another man is under arrest, but police are not providing further details.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss police and gendarme training school in Savatan has signed an agreement with the French national Gendarmerie to boost mutual training and continuing education projects. One of the key goals will be to improve cross-border collaboration, increasingly important given growing policing problems in urban France and the Lake Geneva region that require rapid responses, say canton Vaud police, who are closely involved in the project.
Theft and violent crime in the Lake Geneva region, often with the criminals coming from French urban areas, has increased in recent years.
New police academy projects will focus on improving joint work methods and greater use of technology.
AARGAU, SWITZERLAND – A 31-year-old African immigrant was stabbed several times during what seemed to be an unprovoked attack at the Aargau train station on 24 July.
According to cantonal police, the circumstances of the attack are still unclear but two assailants are believed to have attacked the man while he purchased a train ticket in that city.
The attack took place at around 23:35 when the man described as an Eritrean immigrant residing in Zurich, was purchasing a train ticket. The man had just gotten to the train station following a marriage in Aargau.
The victim says two men assaulted him, beating and stabbing him on the shoulder and back. The man described his assailants as two white men between 20-30 years of age and about 1.75 metres tall.
If you have any information related to this incident you are asked to call the police at: +41 (0) 62 886 0117.
SION, SWITZERLAND – The man in his 60s charged with drugging and sexually abusing children, mainly in Vaud and Valais over several years, has been given a 13-year prison sentence by a judge in Brig, canton Valais, longer than the sentence requested by prosecutors because of previous offenses. He was charged with a series of offenses including rape and attempted rape, from 1996-2007.
His victims included students at Aiglon College, a private boarding school in Vaud.
He was also ordered to compensate his victims financially, for a total of CHF65,000 and to pay the bulk of the case’s legal expenses.
Swiss judiciary police in action - Photo GE police
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The overall crime rate fell by 1 percent in Switzerland in 2010, but the picture was mixed, figures released by the federal government Monday 21 March show.
Juvenile crime fell by 8 percent and penal code infractions were down 5 percent. But numbers for drug-related crimes and the foreigners illegally entering the country were up, 4 percent for the first and 7 percent for the second.
The last two increases could be due at least in part to better policing, given that these arrests are the result of police investigations, while property crimes are generally recorded as a result of victims posting complaints.
Switzerland’s crime rate is relatively low, compared to other countries, but recent, accurate comparisons are hard to come by and not widely considered accurate.
The Federal Statistical Office in Neuchatel cautions that 2010 is only the second year when police departments from all cantons provided harmonized statistics, some cantons that joined the nationwide crime statistics programme in 2009, the first year, were still adapting their own reporting systems. Comparison should be made with some reserve, the federal agency notes.
Most crimes were against property
The total number of crimes reported was 656,858 for a population of some 7.7 million. Eighty percent of the crimes were against property, 14 percent involved drug laws, 4 percent were illegal presence in the country and 2 percent involved breaking “other” federal laws.
Foreign criminals disproportionate to non-Swiss population
A judge in the UK today begins hearing the case for extraditing Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, to Sweden. The hearing is expected to end Tuesday, but with judgement reserved until later in February. Assange’s lawyers argue that he should not be extradited because Sweden wants him for questioning in relationship to two charges of sexual misconduct, saying he has not been charged with a crime.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, AP/Chicago Tribune, Reuters
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A popular presenter of rock music programmes for Swiss public television TSR in the 1980s, who lives in France, was placed under house arrest 13 December, by French police in Gex. The man, who cannot be named publicly in Switzerland, although he is named in France, is accused of committing sexual acts with young boys, reports France’s Dauphine Libéré. The newspaper says he has partially admitted to the crimes, which consist mainly of sexually touching young boys who were invited as guests on his show. The newspaper also cites his Geneva lawyer, who objects to the use of the term pedophile, saying it implies rape, a crime of which he is not accused and did not commit.
French police were alerted by Swiss authorities, who acted on information supplied by the man’s victims, now all adults.
An informant who in 1999 told Vancouver police a second-hand story about Robert Pickton butchering a woman and storing body parts at his pig farm in western Canada recounted the story publicly for the first time Monday 23 August on CTV News. Pickton was convicted in 2007 of murdering six women, a grisly saga that gripped the nation during his trial. Leah Best, in her 50s, heard the story from a close friend who said she witnessed Pickton cutting body parts. The friend, who received money from Pickton for drugs, refused to acknowledge the story to police and she was not initially considered a reliable witness. Once Pickton was arrested, in 2002, she gave police details and became a star witness in his mass murder trial.
Best, on television Monday, said she believes some of the women could have been spared had Vancouver police acted on the information she gave them. Pickton, age 61, told an undercover police agent he had killed 49 women, and he was charged with the deaths of 20 women in addition to the six murder convictions for which he is spending life in prison, with no possibility of parole for 25 years (Canada’s harshest sentence).
Links to other sites: CTV News, The Globe & Mail
Geneva, tram in city centre, night
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Geneva police Monday 19 April start the operation they are calling Figaro, to reduce petty crime, in particular theft, in the city centre. The police coverage in the area around the Cornavin train station, Paquis and across the river at Eaux-vives and Rives will be stepped up until the end of the year, with 15-30 additional officers on duty in the area. The extra manpower was found by reorganizing hours and shifts.
Figaro was organized in response to an increase in pretty crime: figures published in March 2010 showed that the rate of theft in Geneva jumped 7 percent last year and that Geneva now has the highest rate in the country.
Sion, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The former second in command of the police in canton Valais was fined CHF16,500 and handed a suspended sentence of 100 days of community service 1 April in a case of child sexual abuse. He was charged with sexual acts involving a 13-year-old girl.
The case underscores some of the difficulties courts, victims and the accused face in child sexual abuse cases.
The man, who was removed from his job and reassigned to a cantonal police department project where he is still working, was charged after the girl’s school contacted the police.
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland has for the first time produced nationwide crime statistics that will in future allow for true comparisons between areas. Top of the list of crimes committed: theft and property damage, which together make up 82 percent of all crimes, with car theft more than one-third of these.
Swiss police registered 675,309 crimes in 2009.
Domestic violence: one-third of violent crimes; foreigners commit one-third of all crimes
Annecy, France (GenevaLunch) - The killer of a young man, Freddy, murdered near Geneva in September 2007 because his murderer suspected Freddy had stolen €450 from him, was sentenced 3 March to 30 years in prison. The crime drew massive regional media coverage at the time partly because of the gruesome business of finding the victim’s body, which had been chopped into pieces and thrown into or near the Arve river. Two fishermen were the first to find part of his body, the trunk.
Update 8 January Sion, Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in Valais say that the information published by Le Matin concerning an avalanche Sunday 3 January was incorrect: the seven skiers caught by an avalanche that ended on a groomed slope had been skiing off-piste and set off the avalanche themselves. The group included five young people, ages 11-19. The two adults in the group, a 51-year-old Geneva man and a 44-year-old French woman, have been reported to the magistrate (judge) named to investigate the case. The newspaper had reported earlier that three young people, not part of the group, were arrested by police for setting off the avalanche.
Anzères freeriders who set off avalanche reported
The police also announced Monday that they have reported three freeriders to the magistrate investigating an avalanche that hit a groomed slope at Ayent, near Anzères, 27 December. A 34-year-old Valais woman and two men from Neuchatel, one age 32 and the other 42, joined the initial search for people caught by the avalanche, but then left the area without giving their names. They did not respond to police notices and a press release inviting them to turn themselves in, police note, but the police investigation turned up their names.
The ski-touring person who died when he and his guide were caught by an avalanche in the Val de Bagnes area near Verbier has been identified: a 56-year-old man from Bern.
Police seek Crans-Montana fireworks witnesses
The police are also looking for witnesses to New Year’s midnight celebrations at the Ycoors skating rink in Crans-Montana, where a nine-year-old boy was hurt in the eye by fireworks set off by an unknown person. Tel: +41 27 326 5656.
Also see:
- “Off-piste in Switzerland: risks, responsibilities”, 5 January 2010, GenevaLunch, on fitting the punishment to the avalanche crime
- Swiss avalanche and snow institute’s chart, European Danger Scale with Recommendations
French Alps, seen from Celigny, Vaud in Switzerland
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Frontaliers (cross-border workers) are said by some to be at the root of many of Geneva’s social problems, from traffic to crime to unemployment. These concerns among Geneva’s voters were reflected in last weekend’s elections to the cantonal parliament, or Grand Conseil, which gave the right-wing Mouvement des Cityoyens Genevois (MCG) an increase of 8 seats to 17, out of 100.
Le Temps asks in a lengthy article 16 October if there is any truth to the concerns that MCG raises, namely that frontaliers cause the problems of which they are accused.
The friendly corner newsagent in the UK is closing at the rate of over one day, a victim of competition from supermarkets, crime and the economic downturn. In 2008, 510 newsagents closed, 6.25 percent more than in 2007, reports the BBC. The national federation of retail newsagents (NFRN), which counts 17,500 members, wants the government to help newsagents to install closed-circuit cameras (CCTV) and shutters to combat crime. It is also asking the government to make a distinction between “normal crime and retail crime”. There are some 30-35,000 newsagents in Britain, 75 percent of them owned by Asians. BBC, This is Nottingham
Lausanne/Bex, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 20-year-old who was knifed in the heart Tuesday 1 September by two youths he didn’t know as he walked through Parc Montbenon in Lausanne, died Saturday of his injuries, Vaud police say. The 15- and 17-year-olds who killed him were caught near the train station shortly after the crime and told a judge they pulled a knife on him because they didn’t like the way he looked at them.
One of them had been charged in the past with attempted murder and spent time in a juvenile detention centre in the Jura, but he escaped in January 2009.
A second violent crime was committed by juveniles in Bex Sunday night, near the Vaud/Valais cantonal line, that sent a police officer to hospital with head, throat and knee injuries.
All four youths are of foreign nationality, from three countries, and none of them have permanent residence status. The crimes come at a time when Switzerland has been debating what to do with foreigners who have not become well integrated into Swiss society and who commit serious crimes.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Petty larceny, with pickpocketing high on the list, has been rising in Geneva: 1,597 arrests in 2006; 1,794 in 2007 and 1,955 in 2008, according to police figures, possibly in line with a nationwide increase, but comparative figures will not be available before 2010, reports AFP. The news agency notes in an article on Geneva crime that the number of cases of bodily harm have doubled during this period, with figures covering everything from slaps to serious injuries.
Ambilly, Haute Savoie, France (GenevaLunch) - A man was shot in the head once and killed Sunday 16 August while out walking his dog in a hamlet near Annemasse, neighbouring France, just metres away from the French-Geneva border. Two men aged about 20 were arrested hours later and taken in for questioning. The case is under investigation in Annecy. All three men were known to the police. Related: Le Dauphiné Libéré, TdG
Tourists in Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Hotels in Geneva are increasing the pressure on the government to improve security for visitors to the city, in the wake of accusations by the consul general of Saudi Arabia that police did not do enough when a Saudi citizen was seriously injured and robbed in what the man’s lawyer says was an attack in the city centre, according to news agency ATS.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva’s tourism office and political authorities are taking steps to calm the situation and in particular relations with Saudi Arabia after Geneva police confirmed 10 August that a Saudi Arabian man was beaten unconscious in Geneva and his credit cards stolen three weeks ago. Police spokesperson Jean-Philippe Brandt confirmed the news on Swiss radio station RSR. The confirmation followed strongly worded statements from Saudi Arabia’s consul general Nabil Mohamed Al-Saleh that police in Geneva have not done their job, accusations that he repeated Tuesday morning 11 August in an interview with Fribourg newspaper La Liberté. Other representatives of the Arab community in Geneva nevertheless said the situation must be kept in perspective, that Geneva does a good job of welcoming Arab tourists.
Cattle rustling, stealing cows and selling them, is making a comeback in the old West, and is driven in part by the recession: across the Western US, ranchers are seeing the return of a crime that went out with the cowboy. In Texas, where the beef industry is worth $6.3 billlion, over 6,400 cows were reported stolen in 2008.
Swabians trying to recuperate cows from the Swiss during Swabian wars (image ©2009 Faksimile Verlag Luzern)
It is easy. Cows worth $700 each can be loaded onto a trailer and taken to auction, and sold. Unlike other stolen goods, stolen cows keep their value. Branding a cow is not compulsory in Texas, and some dishonest ranch hands reportedly “hair brand” the cow, searing only the hair, not the hide, so the owner’s brand is covered up when the hair grows back.
Cattle rustling is ancient, and has been the cause of differences between neighbours from time immemorial. During the last war between the Austrian empire and the nascent Swiss confederation in 1499, called the Swabian war, the Swiss defeated the Swabians, and gained an important measure of political autonomy from the empire. They also kept the cows. ABC News, Craig Daily Press, LA Times
Bettlach, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Police in Canton Solothurn are investigating the shooting death of two people Monday morning, 13 July.
According to authorities the two bodies, reportedly a man and a woman, were found in the community of Bettlach in northern Switzerland. No other information has been released pending the investigation.
Update 18:05 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch, agencies and other media) – Cécile Brossard, the murderer of Edouard Stern, has been found guilty by a jury in Geneva of homicide for killing her lover 28 February 2005. The jury will decide Thursday on her sentence, up to 20 years in prison.
Geneva, Switzerland (romandie/AFP, Fre) – The trial of Cecile Brossard, accused of murdering Edouard Stern, opened in Geneva Wednesday morning with two of the French banker’s children and his ex-wife as witnesses. His wife described him as a man with faults but who was an exceptional person. Brossard asked the court to allow her to explain how the crime occurred, but not to muddy the memory of the man.
Background, 9 June 2009: GenevaLunch/l’Hebdo, part one and part two in English
Swiss news weekly L’Hebdo magazine’s 2 June edition features on its cover the murder trial of Cécile Brossard, accused of killing her lover, wealthy French banker Edouard Stern, in 2007. GenevaLunch, a partner of l’Hebdo, brings you the English version in two parts.
French version © 2009 l’Hebdo
English version © 2009 GenevaLunch (may not be reproduced in part or whole without written permission).
Part two: Edouard Stern, a man and a banker in too much of a hurry
28 February, Geneva: a brutal end, at age 50, to the life of Edouard Stern. Known as the enfant terrible of his bank who was headed for disaster at some point, he finally succeeded in achieving that. He was the offspring of a financial dynasty who, at the age of 22, found himself at the head of the family bank. He turned it into a gem, then sold it in 1988 to Société de Banque Suisse. He then joined his father-in-law, Michel David-Weill, at the centre of power of another high finance bank, Lazard. But his temperament didn’t sit well with the traditionalists. For Stern, business was something to be done quickly, without personal involvement.
Swiss news weekly L’Hebdo magazine’s 2 June edition features on its cover the murder trial of Cécile Brossard, accused of killing her lover, wealthy French banker Edouard Stern, in 2007. GenevaLunch, a partner of l’Hebdo, brings you the English version in two parts, with an introduction by GL editor Ellen Wallace.
French version © 2009 l’Hebdo
English version © 2009 GenevaLunch (may not be reproduced in part or whole without written permission). Translation: Sean Ecker
Background: The trial of Cécile Brossard for murdering Edouard Stern opens in Geneva 10 June, and is expected to run to 19 June. With 30 journalists accredited, it will likely remain in the headlines for the length of the trial. She has admitted to murdering her lover, divorced banker Edouard Stern, one of France’s wealthiest men, who was 50 at the time of his death in February 2005. The killing – four gunshots at his luxurious apartment in central Geneva – sparked enormous media interest at the time. The story was a hot mix: money, world travel, an on-again off-again affair he had with a woman 16 years his junior who came from a middle-class small-town French background while he came from generations of banking wealth, and then there was the death scene, with the victim found dressed in a head to toe latex suit that was part of their sadomasochistic sexual games. And then tales of his manipulative behaviour began to eke out, while other observers questioned his killer’s words.
The trial adds to this two well-known lawyers and public curiosity about the woman who committed the crime. Swiss media have already warmed up for the trial: the Tribune de Genève writes of obscure plots, disinformation being spread and swissinfo (in French) relates a tale of passion, power and sex. Suisse Illustré asks, diabolical Mata Hari or fragile woman? TSR, which is putting three journalists on the story, has a video blog to follow the trial.
The story according to L’Hebdo:
Brig, Valais (GenevaLunch) - Three young women, age 17, have been arrested for assaulting another woman in Brig during Carneval 22 February. The three were forced to leave a restaurant after they began to verbally abuse clients. They waited outside and then attacked a woman who had been in the restaurant when she left, delivering a series of kicks and punches. The same trio attacked a young woman in the streets of Brig four days later. They have admitted to the crimes, says cantonal police.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has sent 500 police officers onto the streets of Medellin in an attempt to stop the violence as drug gangs battle over territory, in what appears to be a “fight for control of an organization set up by Pablo Escobar of the Medellin cartel,” reports the BBC. Escobar died in 1993.
