Switzerland Today

Sunny regards from Bern!

Today we look at Switzerland’s most famous prisoner: the curious, controversial and frankly wild case of the Swiss prisoner Brian Keller, also known under his legal pseudonym “Carlos”, may finally be coming to a close. But those who have been following this legal case for the last few decades know we have been here before. So what is the newest development?

This in today’s briefing. But first a look at the news.

In the news:

• Macron in Switzerland – “you may not know it, but you are also Europeans”: Swiss-EU relations were the overriding theme as the French President arrived in Bern on Wednesday for an eagerly-anticipated two-day state visit.
• France’s first lady charms Swiss school during surprise visit: on the fringes of the French President’s visit, Brigitte Macron visited a school in Bern on Wednesday. The former teacher impressed both teachers and students.
• Zurich unveils container village for safe drug consumption: in a new makeshift container village around an area known as the barracks in Zurich, addicts can consume drugs in a protected environment.
• Swiss tech industry faces deepening crisis as orders and exports plummet: the situation in the Swiss tech industry is becoming more and more dire. While new orders came in increasingly sparsely in the third quarter, exports of goods and sales also fell.
• Zurich sees 10% rise in second homes, district disparities emerge: the number of second homes in the city of Zurich has risen from 6,610 to 7,250 in the current year. This corresponds to an increase of 0.2 percentage points to 3.1% of the total housing stock.
• Swiss adoptees seek roots: recommendations for legal and DNA support: Adoptees should be supported in their search for their roots. This is the recommendation of a working group in collaboration with the Federal Office of Justice.
• Call for closer monitoring – Swiss government urged to oversee sanctions: the federal government should monitor the implementation of economic sanctions more closely in the future. This is what the Senate Audit Commission is demanding after analysing, among other things, the Russia sanctions. It makes six recommendations to the Federal Council.
• Switzerland promises support to special tribunal over Ukraine war: the Alpine nation officially committed itself to this goal at a meeting in Berlin on Thursday, joining a “core group” of states that support the creation of such a tribunal.

Switzerland’s most famous prisoner: the case of “Carlos”

After multiple various prison sentences and institutionalisations, Brian Keller, known under the legal pseudonym “Carlos” has been released from custody. But this complicated drama-filled legal case, which also involved the UN torture rapporteur, started many decades ago, in the late 1990s.

At the age of just three, Keller was placed in a programme for gifted students. However, this was quickly followed by many stints in institutions, reportedly due to unsustainable and chaotic conditions in his familyExternal link.

At the age of ten he was wrongly accused of arson. At 12 he was sentenced to eight months in a prison for adults, allegedly spending 23 hours a day in solitary confinement.External link

Between 2006 and 2011, Keller committed 34 crimes.

At 15, Keller stabbed an 18-year-old twice in the back. He was sentenced to nine months in prison, where he spent part of his sentence in solitary confinement. After attempting suicide twice, he was admitted to the Zurich University Psychiatric Hospital – here he was handcuffed to his bed for 13 days and forcefully medicated.

The human rights organisation humanrights.ch reports that Keller was not allowed to go to the toilet or shower and his restraints were only slightly loosened to allow him to use the restroom while remaining laying down.

In 2013, Keller was placed in a specialised programme which was said to be tailored to his specific needs. This programme included weekly boxing training, individual schooling and psychotherapy. All of this came to a staggering monthly cost of CHF29,000 ($32,645).

The media circus around the case “Carlos” began after an Swiss public television, SRF documentary “The Youth Advocate”,External link which reported on the sum being spent on a single individual.

This led to the specialised programme to end prematurely. He was returned to prison and solitary confinement from August 2013 to February 2014, at which point the Federal Court ruled that Brian’s detention was unlawful. He was released back to the specialised programme.

However, in October 2014, he quickly found himself behind bars again, after threatening a person with a switchblade.

In April 2015 it was determined that the accusation was false and Keller was compensated CHF100 for every day he spent in prison.

His freedom was, however, short lived.

In March 2016 he was sentenced to an unconditional prison sentence of 18 months for attempted grievous bodily harm. Keller was once again placed in solitary confinement.

In prison he slept on the floor, shackled and only wearing a poncho and underwear, and was reportedly not allowed to shower or brush his teeth for days. At some point he was transferred among the general prison population.

However, as his 18-month sentence was coming to an end, he was informed that he would once again be placed in solitary confinement – reportedly due to a planned attack by other inmates. Upon hearing the news, Keller attacked the prison staff. This led to 29 additional charges, for which he is found guilty.

In 2021, during this latest incarceration, Keller was not allowed to send letters or make phone calls, was not allowed to receive visitors, and was only allowed to read the Koran or mail from his lawyer, and was denied access to the courtyard. For more than two years he had no outside contact and the last time he saw his father was in 2018.

In May 2021 he received his own courtyard which he could access without handcuffs. In summer 2021, Nils Melzer, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, wrote to the Swiss government to complain about the treatment Keller was receiving, stating that under UN norms, solitary confinement should only be used in exceptional cases, and not for longer than 15 days. Speaking to Swiss public radio SRF, Melzer said that it was now “almost three years” that Keller had been held under such conditions.

In December of the same year, he was to be integrated with the rest of the prison population.

In 2022, a court extended Keller’s incarceration. Just three days before his set release date, his incarceration was extended again, citing 33 crimes which Keller was said to have committed in prison between 2018 and 2022, adding an additional two years and six months to his sentence. Keller was set to be released in November 2023.

The court did not consider continuing his preventive detention in Zurich prison. Since Keller was no longer in solitary confinement, he has shown “generally good behaviour”.

On Friday, November 11, he was released.

The public prosecutor has said it is not interested in keeping Keller in prison for as long as possible, “but it would have been better to prepare his life in freedom for longer than just 48 hours.” After all, the safety of the public is also at stake, he said.

Now time will tell if Keller has been rehabilitated and if the case of “Carlos” can come to a final end. But many questions still remain: were his many incarcerations justified? What could have been done differently? It’s a case of the chicken and the egg – what came first? The problematic child or the harsh treatment endured at a young age which led to a problematic child? And is this what justice looks like in Switzerland?