French make legal request to Swiss over Schumacher records

Michael Schumacher suffered severe head injuries after a skiing accident Keystone

The French authorities have made a request for legal assistance from Switzerland over the theft of Michael Schumacher’s medical files. The former Formula One race driver was injured in a skiing accident in the French Alps in December 2013.

On Tuesday the Federal Office of Justice confirmed they had received the request and were passing it on to the relevant authorities in canton Vaud for further examination.

Schumacher, who owns a house in Gland overlooking Lake Geneva,  sustained severe head injuries while skiing off-piste at the resort of Meribel and lay in a coma for months.

He was flown by air ambulance at the time of his accident to the CHU Grenoble hospital, where he stayed until being moved to the University Hospital of Lausanne in June for rehabilitation after coming out of the coma.

The same month, details of his injuries which were described in a dozen-page letter from Schumacher’s doctor in Grenoble, were put up for sale. Journalists were offered the information online for the price of CHF60,000 ($67,000).

French prosecutors investigating the case said the letter had probably been discarded, as the contents did not appear in the race car driver’s final medical report.

At the start of July the French authorities said that via an IP address, they had traced the leak to a Zurich helicopter firm. A report on the case in the French newspaper ‘Dauphiné Libéré’ is allegedly the factor that led to the Swiss air rescue service, REGA, lodging a criminal complaint with the Zurich public prosecutor against an unknown person or organisation.

REGA said then that the aim was to bring “complete clarity” to the situation.