Human rights and illegal assets top judicial aid issues

A "Free Nekane" banner in Zurich in September 2017, calling for Nekane Txapartegi's release Keystone

Unlawfully acquired assets and human rights were two top issues in international mutual legal assistance for 2017, a report has revealed. And a high-profile case involving suspected members of the Italian mafia has come to end.

The nine people still in Switzerland who were linked to the case were deported to Italy in autumn 2017, according to the Division for International Legal AssistanceExternal link report for 2017, which was published on Friday.

In 2015, Italy submitted a request for 13 people to be deported, on suspicion of being part of the Swiss branch of the Calabrian mafia ‘Ndrangheta.

+ There’s more on the background to the case here

Another case that caused “huge media interest” last year was that of a Spanish citizen – Nekane Txapartegi –  accused by Madrid of being part of the Basque separatist group ETA, a  justice ministry statementExternal link accompanying the report said. Madrid called for her extradition, but the woman in question claimed she had been tortured in her homeland, raising human rights issues.

The Federal Court confirmed the extradition but in the end the woman was freed because Spain withdrew its extradition request because the sentence pronounced against her had reached its statute of limitations.

+ Read more on the case here

Several cases concerned assets acquired unlawfully, such as the return of €1.2 billion (CHF1.4 billion) to Italy. Illegal assets should in principle be returned to their country of origin, but this is not always possible in practice, the statement continued, such as in a case concerning assets linked to former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his relatives. These had been frozen in Switzerland in 2011.

At the end of August 2017, Switzerland informed the Egyptian authorities that it considered the case closed, the communiqué added. The decision was made for legal reasons: that the requests did not conform with Swiss law.

In late March 2018, it was announced that CHF32 million had been returned to Egypt – around CHF400 million in total is said to be held in Switzerland, according to the Swiss news agency SDA-ATS.

Overall, for 2017: “The sustained high number of criminal cases with an international connection shows the necessity of Swiss mutual legal assistance authorities being able to collaborate well with their foreign partners,” the justice ministry said.