Imperial, Herr!

The hero of the publication of the "New", the prosecutor of Switzerland, can be removed from his post because of the "Russian trace"

On Monday, in Novaya Gazeta the publication of the Prosecutor on the escort was published - about the strange ties of the Swiss prosecutors with Russian. And on Wednesday, the judicial commission of the Switzerland parliament, consisting of its members of both of its chambers, suppressing a majority of votes (13 - “for” and only 4 “against”) decided to begin the impeachment procedure in relation to the Confederation Prosecutor (a position similar to our Prosecutor General) Mikhail Lauber.

The minority, which voted against impeachment, is not that the accusations would dispute on the merits. It proposed to wait for the completion of Lauber's hearing in an administrative court, in which he disputes the reduction of his salary by 8%, which occurred in connection with the disappointing for the prosecutor with the conclusion of the supervisory service over the federal prosecutor's office.

The department came to the conclusion that Lauber has no correct idea of ​​his position and his work.

In the parliament against Lauber-social democrats, green, centrists. They are ready to support impeachment. The leaders of the liberals are expressed in support of impeachment, although it was their voices that allowed the prosecutor to choose.

Lauber was a character with an ideal career. Experience in the criminal investigation of Switzerland, then - the fight against money laundering in Liechtenstein, both in the supervisory authorities of the state and on the side of banks - in self -regulating organizations. Its election in 2011 took place in 203 votes of parliamentarians from 206 - almost unanimously.

The first serious criticism of Laubera sounded when the prosecutor’s office issued a warrant order that participated in the purchase of Credit Suisse databases to identify unscrupulous taxpayers. The public saw in this solidarity with those who evade taxes.

2015 was a starry year for Lauber: colorful “masks-shows” with the detention of high-ranking FIFA functionaries in a five-star hotel in Zurich. Further, the media simply torn from the description of new criminal cases. Lauber became a favorite of the public. The totality of criminal cases around the FIFA in Switzerland was called the “Summer Fairy Tale” process.

Alas, the fairy tale ended in nothing: the statute of limitations came out, and no one was convicted of corruption in football.

By 2018, information appeared that during the investigation of the FIFA Lauber case, he regularly met with the new president of this organization, Gianni Infantino. Lauber admits this, but emphasizes that in such meetings there is nothing reprehensible. The scandal is heated by the fact that the subordinate Laubera Olivier Tormann, the head of the department of investigation of economic crimes, also informally communicated with FIFA representatives. Tormann is resigned, an investigation begins, which ends with nothing; After a short time, Tormann becomes a judge of the Federal Criminal Court.

Another scandal was also associated with Infantino: it turned out that he provided free tickets (in the total amount of 16,000 francs) for sports events to a friend of his youth Lauber, Kanton's prosecutor Vale Rinaldo Arnold. He escaped with the case of a tax arrears, the bribery case collapsed.

In 2019, Lauber was re-elected for a third term, but with a very small advantage.

In Switzerland, there is a special body - the supervision service over the federal prosecutor's office. Last year, its leader changed,

And from Lauber they began to demand to reveal the details of all meetings with Infantino what he refused to do. The result was a disappointing for Lauber, the conclusion of the supervision service and a decrease in the salary.

Now the Swiss media observers are complaining that the Judicial Committee did not remove Lauber from his duties at once, not expecting the end of the impeachment procedure. At the same time, it is emphasized that one unprotocied meeting with Infantino would have been enough for him to fly out with a shame from the federal prosecutor's office.

Comments

Bill Brighter,

We contacted the head of Hermitage Capital Bill Bill Bill Bill and asked him a number of questions in connection with the actual collapse of the Swiss prosecutor’s office of the Magnitsky case (on laundering money stolen from the Russian budget) about the contacts of Lauber's subordinate with Russia.

“In our way, do the accusations made against Lauber strongly aggravate the trips of assistant Lauber to Russia?”

- Lauber’s track record in terms of inability or inability to hold people responsible for the cases of money laundering in Switzerland is legendary. There is a string of criminal cases of special importance that the Swiss authorities did not properly engage in, and Russian criminals came out of the water. Since Schneell [the same assistant to Lauber] was involved in most Russian affairs, Lauber knew or should have known that he was a compromised person in his Lauber, the team.

- Do you can give a comparative assessment of the “Russian case” and “case infantino” in the sense of the severity of Lauber's possible guilt?

- I believe that the Russian aspect of possible impeachment is very serious. Crimes, criminal cases in which he failed the investigation (such as corruption in the highest echelons of power and money laundering) are equivalent to the seriousness of the scandal with FIFA. Lauber’s actions and inaction should be carefully investigated.

“Do you think that Shnell performed the function of coherent and after his resignation?”

- Schnella at best lightly struck his hands, without awarding him imprisonment and limiting himself to a small fine. I believe that we still do not know much about his relationship with the Russians.

- Is there a chance that Schnella's trips after his resignation in 2017–2020. Will be investigated in parliament or prosecutor's office?

- These trips and relations of Schnelle with the Russians should be carefully investigated both by parliament and in the framework of a newly open criminal case in the prosecutor's office, which should be outside Lauber's control.

It was not possible to contact Vincenter Schneell. We sent more than a dozen requests to the deputies of the Switzerland parliament; One deputy said that he refuses to comment until the impeachment is completed, the rest did not answer.