Ex-spy boss cleared over South Africa affair

Regli ran the foreign intelligence unit for nine years until 2000 Keystone

The Swiss authorities have dropped the last criminal inquiry into alleged involvement of the secret service in South Africa's apartheid-era chemical weapons programme.

The defence ministry said the move was tantamount to the full clearing of Peter Regli, the former head of Switzerland’s foreign intelligence unit, of any wrongdoing.

However, the author of a scientific study into Swiss links with apartheid South Africa criticised the decision by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office as “beyond comprehension”.

A defence ministry statement, released on Monday, said the inquiry – launched in 2004 – against an unknown party for destroying secret service documents, had been abandoned.

The ministry said it welcomed the news that suspicions against Regli had proved unfounded.

“He is therefore fully cleared. The ministry thanks Peter Regli for his hard and good work for the secret service” it added.

However, historian Peter Hug who has researched Swiss links with the South African apartheid regime, said there was irrefutable evidence that documents had been shredded.

“Regli admitted in newspaper interviews that he had ordered the destruction of files,” said Hug.

His study, commissioned by the Swiss National Science Foundation, revealed that the links between the country’s secret service and its South African counterpart were long-standing and included the arms trade.

The report, compiled in 2005, which is still pending official publication, said the Swiss initiated an intensive exchange between the two services.

Probes and research

Monday’s announcement comes nearly four years after a parliamentary report and a separate probe by the defence ministry cleared Regli of illegal dealings.

However, parliament criticised his close relationship with a former secret service agent who had contact with a former head of South Africa’s secret chemical weapons, Wouter Basson.

It condemned the secret service for pursuing “shadow diplomacy” in its dealings with South Africa from the 1970s through to the 1990s.

The parliamentary report also criticised successive Swiss governments for ignoring warnings that the country’s intelligence service was pursuing a strategy with its South African counterpart that was not in line with official policy.

It said the secret service was allowed to operate without proper controls.

Regli had been the focus of several criminal investigations over the past eight years. They included espionage and providing banned goods to South Africa.

Monday’s announcement is the second time Regli has been cleared. In 1999 the defence ministry exonerated him from a first set of allegations.

swissinfo, Urs Geiser

In brief

Peter Regli was head of the foreign intelligence unit from 1991 to 2000 when he was granted early retirement.

Previous probes and reports exonerated Regli of illegal dealings. The defence ministry cleared him in a first round in 1999.

The latest announcement formally puts an end to criminal investigations and defence ministry probes into dealings between the Swiss secret service and its South African counterparts.

Publication of a scientific study, commissioned by the government and completed in 2005, on links between Switzerland and apartheid-era South Africa is still pending.