Bellasi retracts accusations against military intelligence chief

Dino Bellasi, the man at the centre of the biggest Swiss defence ministry scandal in years, has retracted his conspiracy accusations against military intelligence chief Peter Regli, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.

Dino Bellasi, the man at the centre of the biggest Swiss defence ministry scandal in years, has retracted his accusations against military intelligence chief Peter Regli and now says he was not ordered to steal millions of Swiss francs to finance a secret intelligence unit.

Federal Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte told a news conference in the capital Berne that Bellasi withdrew his previous statement that his superiors ordered him to siphon off SFr8.65 million ($5.8 million) from ministry funds.

Regli, who has been suspended along with three other leading intelligence unit officers, has repeatedly rejected Bellasi’s accusations and described them as outright lies.

Del Ponte said investigations against Regli and two other senior officers would now be abandoned since Regli’s accusations had turned out to be false.

Defence Minister Adolf Ogi welcomed Tuesday’s turn of events but said that Regli would remain suspended until the ministry’s own inquiry into the affair was completed.

“We have not found any evidence to support Bellasi’s claim that he was ordered to set up a shadow intelligence unit,” Del Ponte told journalists.

Such a shadow organisation, known as P-27, was discovered by a special parliamentary committee in 1990 and was subsequently dissolved.

Bellasi, 39, was arrested on August 13 on suspicion of having pocketed advance payments in cash for military refresher courses which never took place. His activities are said to go back to 1994.

Del Ponte said that investigations were continuing against one intelligence officer who co-signed Bellasi’s advance payments. She said that the amount stolen by Bellasi was now known to total SFr8.9 million ($5.9 million).

The defence ministry has ordered its own probe into the affair, trying to find out how it was possible that so much money was stolen without anybody noticing.

Federal prosecutors have seized about 220 weapons, including sniper-style rifles, Uzis and Swiss army rifles, which Bellasi had stashed away in several arms caches. Some of the weapons were test fired by soldiers serving with the intelligence unit.

Bellasi always claimed that the weapons were part of a bigger plan to set up a secret intelligence unit.

Bellasi’s defence lawyer said Tuesday he was disappointed by Bellasi’s false accusations against Regli. Earlier in the day, André Seydoux had said he was seeking a psychiatric examination of his client.

From staff and wire reports.