Swissair trial resumes to hear plea speeches
The prosecution and defence in the trial against former Swissair company management have begun their plea speeches after the resumption of the case near Zurich on Thursday.
The 19 accused have already appeared at a makeshift court in Bülach, pleading not guilty to charges that include damaging creditors, mismanagement, making false statements about the business and forging documents.
The fleet of the Swiss national carrier was grounded in October 2001 after the company over-extended itself by buying stakes in a number of loss-making airlines, including Belgium’s Sabena.
A trial observer – Constantin Seibt of Zurich’s Tages-Anzeiger newspaper – says the prosecution is in a difficult situation but the outcome of the trial is uncertain.
Most of the accused remained silent in front of the judges of the Bülach district court, where the trial began on January 16, not wishing to compromise themselves before facing civil charges. But they all rejected the charges against them.
Some went on the counter offensive, describing the accusations as “balderdash” and the cantonal prosecution authorities as “practically ripe for the mad house”, “malicious”, “out of touch with reality” and “amateurish”.
Suspense
“The cantonal prosecution now has two days to present the way it sees things,” Seibt told swissinfo. “The speech will certainly be full of suspense.”
The big question in the whole case is whether there will be any convictions or whether the accused will be acquitted on the main issues.
“Those reporting on the trial are totally divided. But generally there is a feeling that the prosecution is on shaky ground. Company law is not particularly well developed in Switzerland so this is something of a pilot case,” Seibt said.
But in a case where there are more than 4,000 dossiers, he believes the court has “established at least a shell for its decisions”.
One of the main issues for the prosecution is possible damage to creditors and shareholders. The question is when the holding group with its complex 260-company structure was bankrupt and when there was still a chance to save it.
“The prosecution has a number of valid figures, but the accused have just as plausible figures,” Seibt noted.
Debt mountain
Swissair is now history and the debt mountain of the biggest bankruptcy in Swiss economic history is immense. Demands for money will come at a civil trial to be held later.
The case in Bülach is all about criminal offences, which do not include mismanagement, management errors, incompetence or failure.
“In this respect the prosecution is in a difficult position. It has to prove that the accused deliberately [caused the Swissair collapse] or acted with gross negligence,” Seibt said.
“No one has said ‘let’s bring Swissair to its knees’.”
The last Swissair CEO, Mario Corti, accused Switzerland’s largest bank, UBS, of “strangling” the airline, intimating that that the company could have been saved with a bank credit, even after the turbulent days that followed the terrorist attacks in New York in September 2001.
“UBS reacted terribly nervously to this testimony,” Seibt said. The bank promptly rejected Corti’s accusation in an unusually comprehensive statement.
To all intents and purposes, the statements made by Corti, previous CEO Philippe Bruggisser and directors Thomas Schmidheiny and Eric Honegger brought nothing new to light.
“You simply see what chaos and state of shock must have reigned at the time,” Seibt said.
swissinfo, based on a German article by Andreas Keiser
Swissair planes were grounded in October 2001, after the company had been in business for 71 years.
The downturn in the aviation market after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, proved the last straw for the heavily indebted Swissair, which folded the following year.
The airline collapsed after buying stakes in numerous loss-making airlines, including Belgium’s Sabena and Poland’s Lot, in an attempt to form its own airline alliance.
Swissair left behind debts to the tune of SFr17 billion ($13.7 billion) and 5,000 jobs were lost.
The remains of Swissair and the regional carrier Crossair were brought together in 2002 to form the new national carrier Swiss, which was in turn taken over by Germany’s Lufthansa in 2005.
The proceedings, which began at the Bülach district court on January 16, are due to finish on March 9.
Questioning of the accused was completed on February 5.
The trial in Bülach at a hall with a capacity of 1,500 people is open to the public.
The proceedings resume on February 15 with the case of the prosecution and later the defence. No date has been fixed for the court’s decisions.
The prosecution indictment is 100 pages. There are 4,150 files in the case.
The Zurich cantonal prosecutor has spent 40,000 working hours on the case, questioning 300 people and searching 20 houses.
A first version of the charges put forward on March 30, 2006 was rejected because it was faulty. The revised version was handed in on December 31.
The Zurich cantonal prosecution authorities are currently preparing a civil indictment in the Swissair case.
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