Federal Court refuses to release Erwin Sperisen

Erwin Sperisen in Bern in 2019 Keystone / Peter Klaunzer

The Swiss Federal Court on Friday rejected Erwin Sperisen’s request for release. The former head of the Guatemalan national police has been imprisoned in Switzerland for 11 years for taking part in the murders of detainees. He was hoping to be released soon.

This summer, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) criticised Switzerland for failing to provide Sperisen with the guarantee of an impartial court. The Swiss-Guatemalan dual national was convicted in 2018 of participating in the execution of six prisoners in 2006 and murdering a seventh prisoner as part of an operation to regain control of the Pavón prison.

The ECHR ruling came into force last week, without being appealed.

The international body acknowledged that, at the time of a previous request for his release in 2017, the observations of a judge of the Geneva Court of Appeal and Revision “went beyond the statement of a mere suspicion”. The judge refused the request on the grounds that “Erwin Sperisen’s conviction was probable”. The ECHR ruled “that the applicant could reasonably fear that the judge had a preconceived idea on the question of his guilt”.

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On Thursday, Sperisen’s lawyer, Giorgio Campa, called for his client to be released. In his view, the recognition of a biased court should have led to the immediate release of his client. “My client has never had a fair trial,” he said.

On Friday, the Federal Court refused Sperisen’s request for release. It stated that he was not being held under its authority and added that the ECHR ruling had no direct effect on the substance of the Swiss-Guatemalan dual national’s conviction. The Geneva Public Prosecutor’s Office is of the same opinion, and has not received an application for his release.

‘Miscarriage of justice’

For Giorgio Campa, the Swiss judicial authorities “do not wish to assume the consequences of such a denial of justice”.

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“This is an unprecedented miscarriage of justice,” he told Swiss public radio, RTS. “And the consequences for our judicial institutions are such that they are reluctant to do the right thing and re-establish a situation that complies with human rights.”

In the face of what he sees as “an injustice that defies comprehension”, Campa has taken his case to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, the decision-making body of the human rights organisation, to force Switzerland to apply the ECHR ruling.

This new procedure extends a legal saga that has been ongoing since 2012, when Sperisen was arrested in Geneva.

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