The mother of the papal guardsman accused of assassinating his commander in 1998 has failed in her bid to have the case reopened.
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On Wednesday, Switzerland’s highest court threw out her claim that the Swiss authorities should investigate the case of Swiss citizens who die abroad.
Muguette Baudat has always rejected the results of the Vatican investigation into the deaths of Alois Estermann and his wife, which found that Baudat’s son, Cédric Tornay, killed the couple in an act of vengeance after he was denied a military decoration, and then committed suicide.
Baudat and her lawyers maintain instead that her son was liquidated because he had discovered something he was not supposed to know. They think all three were killed by the same person.
The Vatican’s investigator ruled out the involvement of any other party and closed the case in February 1999.
The Federal Court ruled that under the principle of territoriality, a crime is investigated by the authorities in the country in which it was committed. It therefore turned down Baudat’s request that the Geneva police should open their own inquiry.
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