Swiss Milita Article 2

2 Pages·2021·0.09 MB·English

Monday, August 23, 1999 Published at 02:27 GMT 03:27 UK

World: Europe

Swiss 'secret army' scandal

Defence Minister Adolf Ogi - "unimaginable" consequences

The head of Switzerland's secret service has been
suspended as part of an investigation into a multi-
million dollar fraud and the discovery of a huge cache
of arms.

The scandal has led to widespread speculation of a
high-level connection to organised crime or even the
setting up of a secret army.

At a hastily arranged news
conference on Sunday, the Swiss
Defence Minister, Adolf Ogi, said the
investigation into the fraud case had
taken on new and undreamed of
dimensions with the discovery near
the capital, Berne, of an arms cache
containing hundreds of weapons.

He said he had suspended military intelligence chief
Peter Regli with immediate effect at his own request
because Mr Regli "did not want to stand in the way of
the Investigation."

Massive fraud

Mr Ogi said the arms discovery followed the arrest
earlier this month of an accountant in the intelligence
service, Dino Bellasi, who has been accused of
embezzling over 8.5million Swiss francs ($5m) from the
defence department.

The scale of the fraud on its own
would make it the largest of its kind

The BBC's
Imogen Foulkes:
"The affair is the
biggest fraud
case involving the
Swiss
Government"

in the history of the Swiss
Government.

Secret army

One Sunday newspaper, Sonntagsblick, said Bellasi
had links with the Serbian secret services and the arms
were destined for a secret intervention force being
created within the Swiss army.

But Mr Regli, who was also present at the news
conference, denied the reports. "Bellasi has put out an
enormous, grotesque web of lies," he said. "Why would
we need a secret army?"

Swiss politicians have been questioning how such a
scandal could have come about in the secret service,
which only employs about 130 people, without the
knowledge of senior officials.

There have been calls for a fullscale parliamentary
inquiry.

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