Valais climbing death: trainee guide falls to his death
SION, SWITZERLAND – A 17-year-old Valais youth died in hospital Friday 12 August, a week after being involved in an altercation with a 15-year-old in the village of Réchy. The young man was kicked in the chest and lost consciousness Saturday 1 August during a village festival. He was taken to Sion Hospital, where he had been in a coma since and where he died Friday morning.
The two were involved in an argument, according to police inquiries, early in the evening of Saturday 6 August, and the youth who died punched and broke the glasses of the 15-year-old. The two were separated by security services but later in the evening the younger man kicked the other one; the circumstances are not yet clear.
Both youths are Swiss and live in the region. An autopsy will be performed to determine the exact cause of death.
Guide was climbing Egginergrat alone
Valais police Friday 12 August also announced the death of a 28-year-old Jura man who had been training as a mountain guide. He had taken a group climbing Thursday, then left them at the Allalin restaurant in Saas Fee before heading out to climb the Egginergrat on his own.
When he didn’t return Thursday night a search mission was sent out and his body was found at the foot of the mountain, several hundred meters below where he had been climbing.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 21-year-old French woman was shot in the hip late Sunday, say Valais police, when she and two companions, also French, were attacked in Monthey by a gang of five to six men. Another of the women was injured in the face by a bb gun pellet.
The trio was returning to Evian from Montreux between 23:00 and 24:00, stopped near the train station and they were walking when they were approached by a “dubious-looking” group who pulled masks over their faces.
The group stole two cell phones and two wallets containing €200 before they fled.
The French group, unfamiliar with the region, returned to St Maurice from Monthey to contact police. Two of them were treated and released from hospital while the third one was hospitalized overnight.
Police are seeking five to six men, ages 15 to 25. One of them is white, short, of average build and another is black, 190cm tall, deep voice and he speaks French without an accent. Witnesses or anyone with information: please contact police at +41 27 326 5656.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – One young man has died and a second has been rescued by an emergency team on the Aiguille de Midi in the Chamonix region of France, the Tribune de Geneve reports. The newspaper was told by Chamonix police that the two 19-year-olds were climbing the north face of the Aiguille de Midi Tuesday, when they ran into trouble with the weather. They contacted the mountain patrol and were told to stay put for a second night Wednesday, due to weather conditions.
For reasons that are unclear one of them then fell 400 metres to his death and the other contacted the French patrol service Thursday with the news. A foot patrol set out to find them but failed, due to weather and it was 02:00 Thursday before the survivor was picked up by helicopter.
Details have not been provided about where the two young men are from.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The driver of a bus returning a group of 12- to 25-year-olds from a day at Europapark in Rust, Germany is in critical condition after the bus inexplicably crashed on its return trip. Fifteen of the young people suffered minor injuries after the bus veered off the A5 autoroute near Heitersheim, rolling 20 metres into the forest before stopping. Details, TSR, Fr
Ed. note: GenevaLunch, like most businesses in Switzerland, is taking a four-day weekend. Our news today is brief headline stories.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Two groups of youths were pulled in by police, one in Vaud, the other in canton Valais, in connection with separate series of robberies and vandalism. Police in Valais are also warning of a rise in house break-ins, and they are asking people to be vigilant about locking their homes and keeping an eye out for suspicious individuals on their property.
Lutry, Pully boats vandalized by group
Seven young men, six of them minors, were taken in for questioning Saturday 14 May in Lausanne in connection with a series of vandalism in and around the ports of Lutry and Pully, the nights of 10-11 and 12-13 May. Several boats were damaged, with some of them broken into and goods stolen. One of the youths was caught by police after a boat owner surprised him, with his friends, breaking into the man’s boat. The boy jumped into the water to escape but was caught by police, who had been called to the scene.
Police in Lausanne the same night picked up another youth on a stolen scooter. The two were questioned about a number of thefts, including several stolen bicycles, and police were able to identify the larger group. Among the crimes they are accused of: cutting the cable of a professional fisherman’s boat, which later sank. The group of 15 to 18-year-olds has been turned over to juvenile court authorities.
Police in canton Valais also pulled in a group, four Roms who are part of a Roms community currently based in Grenoble, France, ages 18-23, after a series of 20 robberies in the first half of May. The four were caught in possession of goods and money that had been reported stolen. In some cases homes that were left unlocked had been entered clandestinely. The thieves pretended to be deaf and mute and asking for charitable donations, in other cases where they were surprised by the homeowners.
Four tips from the Valais police:
- call 117 if you find people on your property under suspicious pretexts
- never let anyone you don’t know into your home
- don’t keep large sums of money in your home
- lock your home if you’re going out, even for a short time.
Update Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Authorities in Vaud have arrested a man in connection to the 26 February shooting that left two women injured in Lausanne. He phoned police shortly before 03:00 early Monday 28 February, admitting to the crime, and he turned himself in to police in Mont-sur-Lausanne shortly afterwards. He said he did it out of a loathing for authorities.
Police say the man is in their books, but only for traffic violations.
He has now been charged with attempted murder, putting the lives of others in danger and grievous bodily injury.
The man is in his late 20s and he lives on the west side of the city. He told police that he went into the city centre to shoot a police officer, but that he never intended to murder anyone. He shot the parking officer from a distance of 30 metres until he saw the woman fall, then he went home and cleaned his gun.
The shooting took place near the Montbenon Tribunal. Two women, including one who was in her car at the time, were shot in the legs. One of the victims was an off-duty municipal parking agent.
The man shot his 9mm gun before fleeing in what was identified Saturday as a Mercedes-Benz with Valais license plates, police investigators said Saturday. But when the man turned himself in, he admitted driving his dark blue BMW 316i with Vaud license plates.
Nearby Montbenon Park, one of the city’s largest and most popular parks, has been the scene of random acts of violence in recent years. In 2009, an American student was attacked by a group of six young people that included four women. A few months earlier, a 20-year-old was knifed in the heart by two youths he didn’t know as he walked through the park.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 12-year-old girl in the Geneva area was forced to commit fellatio by a group of youths, two of whom she knew from school, last Friday 4 February, and the family has pressed charges, reports the Tribune de Geneve.
The girl and a friend were returning from a party when they were stopped by the boys and after some discussion, the assault reportedly took place. The friend called for help without success, it appears. The incident was not reported by the traumatized girl to her parents until an older sister discovered it after the weekend, when police and the school were notified. The newspaper says that according to the older sister the boys had threatened the girls to remain silent, but they had then boasted about the incident to others.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – In the third such incident in two years, a group of Swiss students have been arrested for violence while on a school trip abroad. Four young men, age 18, were arrested by police in Berlin, Germany after knocking down a couple and stealing money and a cell phone from them.
Police have not provided the name of their school in Bern.
The incident, which left the couple with minor injuries, took place Friday morning 4 February in the Prenzlauer Berg neighbourhood in Berlin. The 38-year-old man was thrown to the ground and the 27-year-old woman with him also fell.
Similar incidents occured in Munich in 2009 and in Rome in 2010.
Zug, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Eight youths, ages 17-20, were arrested in a roundup in the early hours of Friday 4 February in connection with a beating given to a British couple a week ago at the Zug train station. The eight were arrested in canton Aargau in a joint operation between Aargau and Zug police.
Seven of the youths are Swiss and one is Macedonian, Zug police say. The young men have been turned over to Zug authorities for questioning regarding the incident Friday 28 January. The couple and their three children, who are in their early to mid-teens, were eating near the train station in Zug when a group began to notice them and, according to the father of the family, possibly made fun of them.
The British family, which lives in the UK, does not speak German; the father works part-time in Switzerland. They encountered nine members of the group a few minutes later, around 22:00, at the train station. Some of them began to taunt the family, when suddenly four of them began to punch and kick the couple, apparently without provocation. The children were unharmed but the parents were briefly hospitalized and the woman suffered head injuries.
Zug, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in Zug are confident that they will find the gang of young men who attacked a British family Friday evening, spokesperson Marcel Schlatter told GenevaLunch Monday 31 January.
Investigators are expecting to have CCTV footage Tuesday, and they believe the film will allow them to identify the seven to nine youths, about ages 20-22, who were involved. “They’re probably a local group” says Schlatter, noting that nothing in particular appears to have provoked the attack: they were most likely “just young guys out looking for a fight.”
The family doesn’t speak German and no words were exchanged.
Police interviewed people who were at the station at the time but they were unable to give police precise descriptions of the attackers.
The father of the family works in Switzerland part of the time, but the family lives in the UK. The three children, ages 10-13, were not attacked, but both parents were kicked and punched. They were taken to hospital and treated for minor injuries and shock, then released.
Schlatter says the father believes the group first noticed the family when they were all in a restaurant near the train station, where the youths appeared to be making fun of the family, but he was unable to understand what they said. The group then met them again outside the restaurant and a bit later, at the station, where the attack took place.
The Zug station, which was built in 2003, has 25,000 passengers a day.
Munich, Germany (GenevaLunch) - Three Zurich youths who were in Munich, Germany on a school trip in July 2010 were handed sentences Monday 22 November, from 2 years 7 months to 7 years, on various charges ranging from assault to attempted murder. They were sentenced for attacking five men in Munich 1 July while they were on a school trip to Germany. One of them later explained their actions by saying they were looking for a “little fun”, according to swissinfo. Few details about the trial have been made public because the youths are minors.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The driver of a stolen car that crashed in Pregny-Chambesy early Saturday with the kidnapped owner of the car in the trunk had been convicted of rape as a minor, in France, the Tribune de Geneve reports Tuesday, saying that he was also found to have been drinking. He and two other youths accosted a 20-year-old Geneva woman at a stoplight at 05:00 and forced her into the trunk of her car, which they then drove at high speed to Pregny-Chambesy, where the driver hit two parked cars.
The driver and kidnap victim were both hospitalized after the crash and charges were pressed against the three youths, at least one of whom is reportedly finishing his baccalaureate in Ferney-Voltaire.
Fully, Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 21-year-old driver injured two other young people, ages 17 and 20, hitting them when they were using a crosswalk after leaving a bus in the centre of Fully. The two were taken to the hospital in Sion, say police.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A late night accident on the lake road near Geneva, a young driver with too much alcohol in his system, the driver of the other car in serious condition: accidents of this sort happen often enough that they rarely make the front page of Swiss newspapers.
Add in a Lamborghini, other flashy cars, rich children of Russian commercial celebrities and a story with international headlines surfaces. Stir in local political squabbles plus what looks to some people like rich foreigners fleeing the country in the face of Swiss justice, and a continuing headliner of wealth, incompetence and scandal is born.
Geneva media, police, lawyers exchange barbs
An accident which took place 19 November in Genthod, between Geneva and Versoix, has not only made headlines, it is putting Geneva police, authorities and Swiss media in the hot seat. Wednesday 25 November Geneva’s public prosecutor, Daniel Zappelli, said he had received a police file on the case, nearly a week after the accident and the day after he complained that he had received nothing. He has now officially opened a criminal investigation.
The media say police and officials reacted too slowly but the lawyer for the accused, a Geneva police spokesperson who talked to GenevaLunch and officials have expressed dismay at local media for hyping an event without facts. Jacques Barrillon, who represents the 22-year-old driver of the Lamborghini, told Russian journalists that “The story is being inflated in every possible way, just because it features nice, expensive cars, millionaire parents and foreign passports.”
Fribourg, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Two youths, who were 17 when they committed the crime, have been sentenced for sexually abusing two 14-year-old girls in 2008, in a case that was closely followed by Swiss media last year. One has been given a 10-month prison sentence and the other a six-month suspended sentence.
The case made headlines in part because the two were the oldest in a group that included seven others, all minors and about the same age as the victims, as well as three to four other young adults who are still awaiting trial. The ringleaders, one of whom was the target of the affections of one of the girls, are both from Serbia, and the case came to light during a period when the Swiss were considering tightening the law for offenders of other nationalities. They voted in favour of the law. The young man given a firm prison sentence had already had charges dropped in a similar case, but where the girl had consented to sex, but he also had a police record for damaging property and traffic violations.
Switzerland has the highest rate of foreigners in Europe.
Fribourg, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A court in Fribourg 17 March sentenced six youths for their part in a gang rape case that is one of a series of crimes in three locations over several months. The crimes include assault with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm, theft and refusing to come to the aid of an injured person, a handicapped man.
