Kidnapped Swiss embassy worker in Sri Lanka still unfit for questioning
The Swiss embassy in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka.
Keystone / Anthony Anex
The employee of the Swiss embassy in Sri Lanka who was temporarily abducted and threatened by unknown men on Monday is still unavailable for questioning.
The woman’s state of health has deteriorated, the Swiss embassy in Colombo said on Friday. She is therefore currently not in a position to make a statement. The embassy did not provide details on the woman’s state of health.
The local embassy employee was reportedly dragged into a car and threatened by unknown men in a street in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital, on Monday. After about two hours she was released.
According to media reports, the kidnapped woman was ordered to disclose mobile phone data of Sri Lankan citizens who had recently applied for asylum in Switzerland.
On Wednesday, the Swiss foreign ministry confirmed the incident and told swissinfo.ch in a written statement that the woman was threatened in order to force her to disclose “embassy-related information”. The ministry has not said what the perpetrators were looking for.
“Switzerland promptly reported the incident to the Sri Lankan authorities and is demanding an immediate and complete investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident,” wrote ministry spokesman Pierre-Alain Eltschinger.
The Sri Lankan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statementExternal link published on Thursday that Sri Lanka had launched an “immediate investigation”.
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