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Switzerland: Investigation into "shadow" secret service stopped

01 September 1999

On 13 August, the former military intelligence accountant, Dino Bellasi, was arrested for embezzling nearly 9 million Swiss Francs from the National Bank. The money was allegedly used for the establishment of a secret military service, independent of the government. Bellasi claimed that the head of the Untergruppe Nachrichtendienst im Generalstab (UGND, Military Intelligence Service - Sub Group), Peter Regli, had ordered him to embezzle the money for clandestine army manoeuvres in the Alps.

After repeated interrogations by the public prosecution service however, Bellasi retracted the accusations against Regli and other representatives of the UGND. The public prosecutor then reduced its investigation to "embezzlement".

It is not the first time that the UGND has been involved in scandals. In the late 1980's, the French Le Temps journalist, Jean Phillipe Ceppi, uncovered contacts between the Swiss military service and that of the South African apartheid regime. Close military contacts were excused by the head of the former military department, Kaspar Villiger, as merely a "lack of political sensibility". The military cooperation, however, continued. In 1993, an UGND informant and arms dealer dumped ten kilograms of "lightly radiating" uranium next to a motorway service station near Zurich - with the knowledge of UGND boss Regli.

However, none of these scandals, nor the recent allegations, have led to a serious investigation of the "black box" (covert) Swiss secret service. In fact, the UGND will continue to expand its remit to include not only the investigation of foreign military services but so-called "organised crime". This might explain the parliamentary lethargy towards setting up an independent investigation of the allegations mentioned above. Not only the military, but the political leadership, has, since the breakdown of the Communist bloc, been informed by the UGND about "migration and refugee waves", economic and natural catastrophes and generally, crisis spots around the world.