LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Vaud Police are asking for help in finding the driver of a dark blue car that hit a 10-year-old girl in Epalinges Wednesday 9 November at noon.
The girl was walking along the chemin des Tuileries at 12:00 when she stepped into the crosswalk at Petit-Vennes. She was 1.5 metres into the striped crosswalk when the car struck her, knocking her down. The car was heading on chemin des Croisettes in the direction of the chemin des Ormeaux. The driver failed to stop after the accident.
The girl, who was hit in the right arm, took refuge on the sidewalk. Her parents took her to the hospital early in the afternoon and only later contacted police. The child is suffering from a broken wrist, broken tooth, and bruising to her right knee and face.
Pollice are asking anyone with information to call them at +41 21 644 4444 or to contact the nearest police station.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The kidnapping of a 10-year-old girl in Colombia three weeks ago outraged the country and when Nohora Valentina Munoz was released near the Venezuelan border Monday evening 17 October, the country’s president gave effusive thanks to the Geneva-based International Red Cross (ICRC), which negotiated the child’s freedom.
She and her mother were kidnapped 29 September, en route to the girl’s school. Her mother, the wife of Jorge Enrique Munoz, mayor of the town of Fortul in Arauca, was released the morning of the kidnapping.
It is not clear who took the pair, nor have any of the conditions for the child’s release been given. The ICRC in Geneva does not release details of such negotiations in which it is involved.
El Tempo (Spa) newspaper, which has covered the case heavily reported earlier that 1,800 police set up several search and rescue operations for the girl but that these were called off at the request of the ICRC, in order to allow negotiations to begin.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A nine-year-old girl who was hit by a car in Aigle 13 September died Saturday, 11 days after the accident, at the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne, Vaud Police say. The 49-year-old man who was driving the car had had his license suspended in 1997 and police say he lied to them about who was driving the car at the time of the accident.
The girl was crossing the Route de Transit, the Aigle ring road, en route to Lausanne from Aigle, at 19:40, when she was hit. The driver and the owner of the car, a 36-year-old who was a passenger, told police the owner had been driving. The friend was aware the driver did not have a license but had loaned his car to the man in the past.
Police say the driver has previously been charged with driving without a license, on a number of occasions.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Police in Vaud have issued a sketch of the man, 55 to 60 years old, who sexually attacked a pre-teen in her apartment building in Gland 14 April, in an attempt to get more help from the public in finding him.
He was European in look, with light-coloured eyes, white-blond hair and spoke French, possibly with a slight, indistinguishable accent. He was wearing wireframed glasses. Height 170-180cm, weight average although with a slight belly.
He was seen driving away from the scene of the crime in a turquoise (green or blue) car with Geneva plates.
Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 021 644 4444 or contact the nearest police station.
The girl was accosted and lured inside by the man on a false pretext, then sexually molested in the apartment building.
Sion, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The 12-year-old girl from Biel/Bienne who died 10 February from injuries sustained during a school ski trip in canton Valais lost her helmet, police say.
She was close to the top of the steep Arpilles tow bar in Evolène in the Val d’Herens when she slid off, for reasons that are not clear. She then slid 100 metres down the icy path of the tow bar before she hit a padded pylon. During her slide she lost her helmet.
She slid a few more metres after the first crash, into a second pylon, where her head hit the concrete base, presumably causing her fatal injuries.
The site of the fatal accident, Evolene, Valais (source: Valais Cantonal Police)
Sion, canton Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 12-year-old girl on a ski camp in Evolene, in the Val d’Herens, canton Valais, died in hospital in Sion after a ski accident Thursday morning 10 February.
She fell off a tow bar and slid 100 metres on icy snow, hitting a pylon with padding before coming to a stop several metres below.
The girl, from Bienne, was promptly treated at the site then transported by helicopter to the hospital in Sion, where she died. The exact cause of death has not yet been determined, Valais police said in a statement later in the day.
The ski camp was organized by the girl’s school.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The 29-year-old gunman who 4 October shot a 15-year-old girl, Marina, in Petit-Lancy, leaving her in critical condition and in an artificial coma more than a week after the incident, had been fired 10 days earlier by the security agency Securitas, an investigation by the TSR public television show Infrarouge has discovered.
The agency says that the man was fired during his trial period for, reportedly, unsatisfactory work and behaviour not in line with their requirements, but his job did not involve being armed, nor did he have a gun license for his job. He appears to have acquired a personal gun license and to have obtained the gun from a dealer in Geneva.
The gunman also injured a young man when the bullet that lodged in Marina first passed through the youth’s cheek. The two were part of a group of youths who jostled the man, who had been drinking heavily, when they tried to insist that he leave the area near a school, after a dispute. He then went to his car, picked up a gun and took aim.
Once he realized the girl had fallen, he stayed at the scene of the accident and called police on his mobile phone to report the shooting.
Background, GenevaLunch
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.
A 12-year-old Saudi Arabian girl, married a year ago to an 80-year-old man, is receiving help from the country’s Human Rights Commission in what could turn out to be a test case. Marriages of young girls to older men are not uncommon in some parts of the country and are legal, but a draft law under consideration would create a minimum of 16-18 years. The girl’s mother reportedly filed for her daughter to divorce but withdrew it a month ago without explanation.
