Swiss perspectives in 10 languages

Swiss prosecutors investigate suspected Russian spy

russian embassy in bern
Sealed-off from view: the Russian embassy in Bern, pictured in April 2023. Keystone / Peter Schneider

The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) is looking into a Russian agent and two others suspected of violating several laws. One arrest warrant has been issued.

The Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) authorised the OAG to go ahead with prosecutions in this sensitive case, the latter told the Keystone-SDA news agency on Saturday, thus confirming a report in the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper.

The OAG, together with the Federal Office of Police (Fedpol) and the police, had already carried out house searches in several cantons prior to the decision. The men are alleged to have violated the War Material Act, the Embargo Act and the Goods Control Act.

+ Read more: Switzerland’s ‘hands-off’ approach to spies

The OAG asked the foreign ministry to waive the diplomatic immunity of one of the three accused, it said. This immunity lapsed when the person definitively left the country. An arrest warrant has been issued for the individual, which could be acted upon if he re-enters Switzerland.

According to the Tages-Anzeiger, the Federal Intelligence Services (FIS) had previously monitored a Russian representative stationed in Bern. The accredited diplomat is said to have been a spy with the aim of procuring weapons and other potentially dangerous material.

The agent left Switzerland under diplomatic cover after this was requested by Switzerland, the Tages-Anzeiger reports. Overall, the case was handled discreetly: rather than summoning the Russian ambassador in Bern, the affair was dealt with via other channels, the foreign ministry told the paper, without giving further details.

Adapted from German by DeepL/dos

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch

External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
Daily news

Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox.

Daily

The SBC Privacy Policy provides additional information on how your data is processed.

Popular Stories

Most Discussed

News

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR