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The interrogations held between April 5, 2018 and August 21, 2019 were conducted under the responsibility of the then heads of the investigation. These were the old federal judge Hans Mathys and the district judge of Neuchâtel, Pierre Cornu.
Since their appointment had no legal basis, in December 2020 the Economic Criminal Court of Bern declared null and void all actions they had taken and ordered. The problem was that Mathys and Cornü were not civil servants.
Old files transferred to new procedure
After the appointment of a new management duo in September 2021, the procedure was resumed. However, various files from the old procedure have been transferred to the new one. According to a ruling published on Thursday by the Complaints Chamber of the Federal Criminal Court, this is only allowed to a limited extent.
Fedpol argued that not all of the interrogations had been ordered by the two previous heads. On the contrary, the employees of Fedpol or those of the Federal Criminal Investigation Department could have ordered their own surveys.
The Federal Criminal Court does not agree with this argument because Fedpol has not shown how the division of labor has been carried out and how the powers have been divided within the team.
Federal Criminal Court contradicts Fedpol
Moreover, contrary to Fedpol’s position, it was not the task of the complainants to show that the 31 interviews had been ordered by Mathys and Cornu. Who is entrusted with which tasks is a matter of internal organisation. And this was not disclosed by Fedpol to either the complainants or the court.
According to the Federal Criminal Court, it is also the task of Fedpol to implement the considerations of the Economic Criminal Court and resolve invalid files and investigation results. The interrogations are also not about “initial clarifications” in the investigation, which could have been carried out by the Federal Investigation Department without consultation with the trial leader.
About half of the interrogations in question did not take place at the start of the investigation, but in 2019, i.e. almost a year after the opening of the investigation. At the beginning of 2019, the persons who were the main suspects were known.
As the decision of the Federal Criminal Court shows, in August 2020 the files were transferred to the Attorney General of the Canton of Bern for indictment. (SDA)
Source:Blick
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