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Federal attorney Michael Lauber and former FIFA President Joseph Blatter are represented by the same attorney. Now it turns out: the announced partial suspension of criminal proceedings against Blatter by the federal prosecutor goes against the recommendation of the investigating police.
The federal prosecutor’s office has been investigating Joseph Blatter for almost five years (at a press conference in 2015).
A press release released mid-week by the Associated Press (AP) news agency houses Zündstoff. According to the news, the Swiss federal criminal police concluded that Joseph Blatter’s suspicion of inappropriate business conduct is “well founded”. However, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office recently announced that this part of the criminal process would end.
Blatter, the former president of the FIFA World Cup, has been under investigation since September 2015. In these criminal proceedings, the federal prosecutor charges him with two facts: first, he is said to have paid the former president of the European association of Soccer Uefa Michel Platini an unwarranted fee of 2 million Swiss francs. On the other hand, Blatter is said to have signed a television contract that was unfavorable to FIFA with former FIFA Vice President Jack Warner.
Three weeks ago, it was announced that the federal prosecutor’s office intends to finalize the part of the procedure that pertains to the television contract. This apparently contradicts the results of the Federal Criminal Police investigation. In their report, AP relies on a summary of various police reports that are on file. This summary is now also available for NZZ. According to the document, police reports were completed between December 2019 and January 2020. They are said to total 491 pages.
In one of the reports, the varied relationship between Joseph Blatter and his former defender Jack Warner from the small Caribbean state of Trinidad and Tobago is meticulously tracked. Warner chaired the Continental Association of North and Central America and the Caribbean Soccer Association for many years. In this role, he was a key voiceover in the FIFA presidential election. In this context, the aforementioned television contract will be seen, with which Warner secured television rights for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and 2014 in Brazil for Central America. The contract is signed by Blatter in a single signature.
The contract was signed by Blatter and Warner in individual signatures.
The plan was for Warner to keep 50 percent of FIFA’s resale. However, FIFA refrained from demanding this profit-sharing, which the police report put at 3.78 million Swiss francs. Instead, FIFA canceled the amount Warner had benefited from. Due to his passive behavior, there are suspicions that Blatter has allowed FIFA to damage assets, according to the police report. Therefore, he at least accepted that Warner could enrich himself, the researchers say.
With regard to the authenticity of the police report, the Federal Police Office limits itself to the general advice that the Federal Criminal Police regularly write reports or reports as part of criminal proceedings on behalf of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. Questions about specific content should be directed to the federal prosecutor. Initially, their media office confirms in principle that they intend to partially discontinue the events surrounding television rights. However, it notes that a written notice to the parties should not be equated with a formal notice of termination.
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office also responded in its response that it could commission the police to carry out investigations to implement the legal mandate. “The resulting information and reports form part of the basis that the prosecution must submit to a comprehensive evaluation or a general evaluation.”
Therefore, in the criminal proceedings against Blatter, the prosecutor must have had other grounds that led him to be partially suspended. The federal prosecutor responsible is Thomas Hildbrand: like Blatter, he comes from Visp, the two are even said to be related in the third degree. An application for a license in this regard, requested by Blatter, was rejected in court but.
Blatter’s reliance on the same legal representative as US Attorney Michael Lauber – renowned Zurich attorney Lorenz Erni is much more explosive anyway. Lauber hired Erni for the disciplinary proceedings that the supervisory authority (AB-BA) tried against him last year. This frowned everywhere. Many complained that there was a conflict of interest. These allegations are now fueling: Blatter’s lawyer is also Lauber’s legal representative, who in turn heads the authority that does not want to accuse Blatter of the police findings.
None of this helps calm the latent crisis in the Swiss criminal justice system.
