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.
Coal plant, northern Germany (©2010 Andrew Kerr and WWF-Canon)
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - WWF Switzerland has filed a complaint with the European Union over the continuing support by some Swiss electricity companies of coal-based electricity production in northern Germany. Romande Energie is among several Swiss electricity suppliers who participate in the coal-based activities at Brunsbuettel in northern Germany.
Swiss voters, November 2008, rejected decriminalization of marijuana, with regional differences ("yes" votes, by percentage)
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - An upper house of Parliament commission 19 January voted 8-0 in favour of fining anyone caught smoking cannabis. The lower house appears has already moved in this direction, so an ad hoc committee will now write a revision to the statutes, which will include setting the amount of the fine. The move was made after it the Swiss rejected outright decriminalization in a November 2008 vote which would have called for government control of cannabis cultivation and sales.
Parliament made it clear that it wants to change the current legal status, which calls for criminal proceedings to be open against cannabis smokers.
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Bradley Birkenfeld (photo: National Whistleblowers Center)
Miami, Florida, USA (GenevaLunch) – UBS manager turned informer Bradley Birkenfeld will go to prison 8 January after a judge turned down his appeal for clemency Monday 4 January. US District Judge William Zloch also refused to consider further appeals, reports Swissinfo, in a feature on the impact of Birkenfeld’s case and that of a French former HSBC employee. Both have given their governments information on clients held by banks based in Switzerland, a crime under Swiss law.
Birkenfeld has argued that he should not be sent to prison because he brought the IRS, US tax authority, information on some 19,000 clients. But prosecutors have argued that “he failed to disclose his own crimes”, says Swissinfo.
His request to receive whistleblower awards that could amount to several million dollars is under consideration by the IRS Whistleblower Program. The National Whistleblowers Center’s attorneys have been representing Birkenfeld. They issued a statement 30 December calling on all Americans to write to the attorney general to stop Birkenfeld going to jail, saying it will send the wrong message.
Links to other sites: US National Whistleblower Center, Swissinfo
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The CEO of Geothermal Explorers, the company that was drilling as part of a Basel geothermal energy project called Deep Heat, has been cleared of wrongdoing by a court in the city. Charges were brought against Markus Haering after the company’s drilling appeared to provoke earthquakes in Basel in 2006 and early 2007.
Update 16:00 Genthod, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Russian media have been carrying stories about the accident Thursday 19 November in Genthod where a Lambhorgini driven by a 22-year-old Russian crashed into a Golf driven by a 70-year-old German, both resident in the Geneva area. The older man is in serious condition in the hospital. The Russian articles and a flood of comments and e-mail received by GenevaLunch are focusing on the likely names of those involved, with children of politicians and rich businessmen heading the top of the list of suspects. The names are openly published in Russia, with one notable family mentioned in the Guardian Tuesday afternoon.
In Switzerland, the Tribune de Geneve/24Heures published a story Tuesday afternoon saying three of those involved left Geneva Sunday on a private jet, thus avoiding having to give evidence to a Geneva judge. (Ed. note: the story cites “our sources” without details and appeared after Russian media reports).
Bern / Chur, Graubuenden, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Two guides who have been on trial for their part in the deaths of six soldiers during a military mountain training expedition on the Jungfrau have been acquitted. They were on trial in a Swiss military court for involuntary manslaughter and for not observing military regulations.
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.
In search of safer seas (image ©2009 Alinghi/Carlo Borlenghi)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – New York’s Supreme Court has ruled against the Geneva-based Société Nautique de Genève’s (SNG) choice of venue for the America’s Cup 33rd edition. The race was to be held in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, in the the Persian Gulf, in February 2010. The 27 October ruling stipulates that the race must be held in the southern hemisphere between 1 November and 1 May.
”This is a disappointing result as we were certain that Justice Cahn’s May 2008 decision allowed the Defender to choose Valencia or ‘any other location’,” said Lucien Masmejan, Société Nautique de Genève legal counsel.
New York, NY (GenevaLunch) – Six people involved with hedge funds have been arrested in the US by the FBI and charged with insider trading. The group includes Raj Rajaratnam, who founded the Galleon Group, and who is on a Forbes magazine list of the world’s wealthiest people, worth an estimated $1.3 billion. Rajaratnam held a plane ticket for Geneva for the coming week, prosecutors say. Galleon is estimated to have $7 billion in assets under management. It appears that the group was arrested now because Rajaratnam had been tipped off that one of them was being listened to by the FBI.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 25-year-old Valais woman has been taken to prison, accused of defamation against six people, after telling police in March 2009 that she had been gang-raped by her former boyfriend and five other men in a garage in Carouge. She described in graphic detail the sexual relations that took place, in August 2008, but police became suspicious when she remained vague about the identity of the former boyfriend, whom she clearly knew well.
Update 14:00 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevLunch) – Geneva’s public prosecutor, Daniel Zapelli, has now prepared his case against the key people responsible for the collapse of Geneva’s cantonal bank (BCGE), reported the Tribune de Genève 1 October. The article gives a detailed account of the bank’s scandal 10 years ago, based on Zapelli’s 600-page indictment, which the Tribune obtained. Lawyers and government officials have expressed anger in the wake of the article, that a newspaper should have obtained a copy of the indictment before the parties concerned, reports 20 Minutes.
The debacle cost the canton CHF2 billion, and a foundation had to be created to pay off its debts. Hearings in the case began in 2000 and ended only in 2008: they resulted in 3,700 pages of recorded hearings, 40 binders for general information and 1,500 binders of documents related to the hearings, according to an article Le Temps wrote in 2007 about the lengthy judicial process for the case.
Update 5 / Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Film director Roman Polanski’s French lawyer Hervé Temime says in a press release that his client is refusing to accept extradition to the US, Swiss news agency AFP reports Monday afternoon. Polanski, in town to receive a lifetime achievement award, was arrested Saturday at Zurich Airport. The news was announced by the organizers of the Zurich Film Festival, who describe the news as a “shock.” The Swiss Justice and Police department spokesperson, Guido Balmer, has since said that “There is no reason not to carry out a valid international arrest warrant.”
The department issued a statement late Sunday afternoon:
”The US authorities are accusing Roman Polanski of sexual acts with minors, specifically in a case of 1977 with a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles. Since the end of 2005 the US authorities are searching worldwide for Roman Polanski. A US arrest warrant against Roman Polanski exists since 1978.” The government will not issue further details, given the pending status of the extradition request, except to explain the process: “Whether Roman Polanski will be effectively extradited to the USA or not, can be established only, after the extradition process judicially has been finalised. It is possible to appeal at the federal penal court of justice against an arrest warrant in view to extradition as well as against an extradition decision. Their decisions can be taken further to the federal court of justice.”
Polanski pleaded guilty in 1977 and served 42 days in prison, but when his sentence was lengthened he left the country.
Best way to avoid this problem: don't speed, say police
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Police in Vaud will continue to run speeding checks in their effort to reduce speeds on cantonal roads, they say, after checks during the long weekend 18-20 September caught three drivers going well over the 80kph limits: two were caught driving at 130 kph in separate incidents and another was going 158 in an 80 zone. All three had their driver’s licenses seized immediately and they face steep fines.
The police bulletin notes that 75 percent of serious and deadly accidents in the first half of 2009 occurred on cantonal roads, with high speeds as the primary cause.
IBJ CEO Karen Tse
[includes video] Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Karen Tse, founder and CEO of Geneva-based International Bridges to Justice (IBJ), will be awarded the 2009 Gleitsman International Activist Award for her work “to guarantee all citizens the right to competent legal representation, the right to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment, and the right to a fair trial.” The honour, given by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership in Cambridge, Massachusetts USA , comes with a $125,000 prize. The awards ceremony takes place in Cambridge 29 September.
IBJ was founded in Geneva in 2000. Tse recognized that laws were not being applied in many countries. Lack of expertise and poorly trained judicial staff in many countries results in people being denied basic legal rights. Thus, untrained policemen torture prisoners to obtain confessions because it is the easiest way to extract information.
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.
Third update 18:15 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The waitress who was shot by a 57-year-old man Tuesday evening in Paquis, died from her wounds, Geneva police have confirmed to GenevaLunch. The man, who is British and lives in Geneva, pulled out a .357 Magnum revolver and shot the 34-year-old waitress from Senegal in the head late Tuesday night 15 September at the Good Times bar, according to 20 Minutes, on the rue de Fribourg in the Paquis district. Police say he was in an advanced state of ebriety.
According to witnesses, there was an argument over the bill. After shooting the waitress the man left, but he was intercepted by police minutes later on the corner of Rue des Alpes and the Rue de Lausanne, still in possession of the gun. He admitted to the crime.
The Geneva cantonal police reports that the man has had a permit to own the gun since 1987 but he does not have a permit to carry a gun. A permit to own gives the holder the right to transport the arm from his home to a shooting stand, unloaded. It is given after a background check. A permit to carry a gun is given to someone who can reasonably justify that he needs to protect himself, and only following a practical and theoretical test. It must be renewed every year, according to the police.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Swiss police and cantonal and federal authorities will be coordinating their investigations more closely with their counterparts abroad as the Swiss government steps up efforts to combat animal rights activists who have been attacking pharmaceutical companies. The government announced that a dozen persons have been banned from entering the country, based on investigations to date, but no details of the attacks were provided. The activists are fighting the use of animals for pharmaceutical research.
No more of this in Vaud's restaurants
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Canton Vaud’s no-smoking law comes into effect today 15 September, and smokers will not be allowed to smoke in public places like restaurants, bars and cafés. Restaurants may install a smoking area, but patrons cannot be served there by staff. GastroVaud, which represents 1,650 of the canton’s eating establishments has said it will analyze the effect of the ban on its members in a year’s time.
Related: 24heures
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in canton Vaud late Saturday nabbed a biker whose souped-up Honda CBR600 was going 200 kph in an 80 zone on the cantonal road between Senarclens and Cossonay. His license was immediately confiscated and he is being charged with several offenses, including illegally modifying his bike and going 115 kph over the speed limit after the 5 kph margin of error was allowed.
Zurich, Switzerland and Miami, Florida (GenevaLunch) – Bradley Birkenfeld was sentenced Friday in Miami, Florida, USA to three years and four months in prison plus a $30,000 fine and three years on probation following his prison term. He is the former UBS banker whose revelations to the IRS, the US tax authority, set off an investigation that led to bank UBS being taken to court and the US and Switzerland negotiating a treaty whereby the Swiss government will authorize the bank to release details of more than 4,000 client accounts. Full story
Update 18:08 Zurich, Switzerland and Miami, Florida (GenevaLunch) – Former UBS banker Bradley Birkenfeld was sentenced to 40 months in prison by a US court 21 August for helping to defraud the US government. He was also fined $30,000 and given three years probation after the prison term.
The sentence was harsher than expected. The prosecution had been demanding 30 months imprisonment, given Birkenfeld’s cooperation with the prosecution in the UBS tax evasion case.
Update 21 August Miami, Florida, USA (GenevaLunch) - A banker for NZB (Neue Zürcher Bank), Hansruedi Schumacher, and a Geneva and Zurich lawyer, Matthias Rickenbach, both Swiss, were indicted Thursday 20 August in Miami, Florida on charges of conspiring to defraud the US. The two are accused by the US of helping US residents to evade American taxes, including Jeffrey Chernick of New York and John McCarthy of Pasadena, California, two of four UBS clients who recently have been indicted for tax fraud after their names were given to the IRS in February 2009 by the bank, and who turned themselves in.
The two are accused, among other things, of telling “a New York businessman they paid an unnamed Swiss government official a $45,000 bribe for information on whether the businessman’s account would be revealed to US investigators,” Associated Press reports court documents as stating. AP also says the two are in Switzerland and it is not clear if they have US attorneys to represent them.
The New York Times says the new indictments indicate “that the American authorities are starting to pursue smaller players that may have helped Americans hide their money.”
Paris, France (GenevaLunch) - Explicit text messages from a philandering husband to his lover may be admitted as evidence, France’s highest court has found. A lower court ruled that text messages were private and could not be used. The cour de cassation, France’s highest court, found however that as long as the text messages were obtained using neither “force nor fraud”, they could be admitted as evidence, and ruled in favour of the man’s wife. She said she had found her husband’s work mobile phone and discovered the salacious text messages.
Many Islamic countries already allow divorce by text message, simplifying an already simple procedure. Islamic law permits a husband to divorce his wife by saying “talaq – I divorce you” three times.
Schaffhausen, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A four-year-old boy was bitten by a one-year-old Rotweiler dog while his family picnicked near a main road in an industrial zone in Schaffhausen, north of Zurich, Sunday, around 17:00. The boy is in serious condition with head injuries but his life is not in danger.
