Parliament backs anti-terrorism accord with US
The House of Representatives has agreed a treaty with the United States aimed at combating terrorism, despite opposition from centre-left parties.
The accord, which still has to go to the Senate, was passed on Thursday by 110 votes to 55 and is set to replace an Operative Working Agreement (OWA) in force since 2002.
Centre-left parties in Switzerland have serious reservations about the deal on police cooperation.
They insist Washington should apply international humanitarian law and conventions against torture – “otherwise we would be accomplices in these human rights abuses,” said Anita Thanei of the centre-left Social Democratic Party on Thursday.
The accord provides the legal basis for joint investigations and an exchange of information in the fight against terrorism and its financing.
The cooperation is restricted to inquiries and judicial proceedings pending in either Switzerland or the US and has to be carried out in line with a 1973 treaty on judicial assistance.
Standards at risk?
On Thursday the Social Democrats and the Green Party called in vain for a common definition of terrorism, pointing to the controversial Guantánamo prison camp and extraordinary renditions, an extrajudicial procedure conducted by the US government to transfer people suspected of terrorism to third-party states.
Around 100 people have been kidnapped by the CIA on European territory with the tacit consent of the governments, according to a 2006 Council of Europe investigation led by Swiss senator Dick Marty.
The Swiss government has condemned the practice of detaining prisoners at Guantánamo without putting them on trial. But the Swiss justice authorities have tried to obtain information on suspected Islamic militants from detainees at the US naval base on Cuba.
Daniel Vischer of the Green Party said there was a serious risk that the treaty with the US undermines existing legal standards.
On Thursday Vischer called for the term terrorism to be fixed in Switzerland to concrete offences.
“Nobody’s perfect”
However Luzi Stamm of the rightwing Swiss People’s Party rejected across-the-board criticism of the US, saying it was in Switzerland’s interest to cooperate with all major powers to combat international terrorism.
Swiss Justice Minister Christoph Blocher, also from the Swiss People’s Party, said on Thursday that “[Switzerland] deals with imperfect states all around the world”.
The proposed accord, signed by the justice ministers of both countries last July, is to replace an Operative Working Agreement (OWA) in force since 2002.
The new treaty extends the scope of the OWA – which was destined to regulate cooperation for legal assistance – in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks in the US. Its precise contents were neither made public nor presented to parliament for approval, resulting in criticism for a lack of transparency.
Its impact however appears to have been very limited, since no arrests are known to have been made in Switzerland directly related to September 11.
swissinfo with agencies
The attacks against the US in September 2001 marked a turning point in the war against terror.
In 2002, Bern and Washington signed a judicial aid agreement known as the Operative Working Agreement (OWA) to facilitate investigations into the 9/11 attacks.
The new accord covers police cooperation in the fight against terrorism in general and its financing.
It is to complement a 1973 treaty on judicial assistance in criminal matters.
Efforts to negotiate a free trade accord with the US failed last year, but both sides approved the creation of a US-Swiss trade and investment cooperation forum.
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