Swiss prosecutors to close ‘Covid leaks’ probe

The MPC is to close the investigation against Lauener and Walder Keystone-SDA

A criminal investigation into a Swiss media editor and a former health ministry official over leaked government Covid pandemic strategy is to be closed.

+ Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) said the probe against Peter Lauener, ex-halth minister Alain Berset’s former head of communications, and Ringier CEO Marc Walder will be discontinued.

“On the basis of the available evidence, there is no confirmation of the suspicions”, the OAG wrote to Keystone-ATS on Thursday, following a newspaper article by Tamedia.

The authorities have informed the parties involved of their intention to close the criminal investigation. Formally, however, it has not yet done so.

This decision follows a ruling by the Federal Court last month, confirming that the OAG was not entitled to access the data of Lauener and Walder for its investigation into the Corona Leaks scandal.

Translated from French with DeepL/mga

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].