The Swiss Attorney-General’s Office (OAG) confirmed on Saturday that the main charges against the man – violation of the Federal Act on War Materiel – had been dropped due to lack of evidence.
The information had earlier been reported by newspapers from the Tamedia group.
The man was however slapped with a suspended fine of CHF27,000 ($30,940) for illegally taking commission payments of CHF150,000. He also has to pay a fine of CHF4,500 and the costs of proceedings.
The case dates to 2018, when Ruag was tipped off by its own whistleblower office about dubious arms deals with Russia made by a senior employee. Media reports said the head of Ruag’s ammunition division had allegedly made the deals, worth millions, with the then Russia head of the Julius Baer bank.
Former Ruag boss Urs Breitmeier said at the time that the man had “reached an agreement without our knowledge with our sales partner that he could sell other products in parallel with ours and receive additional commissions on all products sold”.
The OAG’s conclusion five years later is however that all the ammo deliveries in question between 2010 and 2013 were duly approved.
The investigation also found no concrete evidence that other arms deliveries and exports of dual-use goods from 2010 to 2016 had not been approved in accordance with the War Materiel Act, nor that the Federal Embargo Act – the legal basis for implementing international sanctions – had been violated.
The former Julius Baer director and his companies were placed on a sanctions list by the US Treasury in February this year in connection with the war in Ukraine.
They are suspected of having secretly supplied the Russian military and secret service with sensitive Western technology and equipment for nuclear weapons laboratories.
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