Investigators can open the most sensitive files in a controversial case that centres on a Swiss family suspected of dealing in nuclear secrets and espionage.
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Switzerland’s justice ministry has confirmed reports over the weekend that it will allow lawyers and investigators access to documents in the so-called Tinner affair. The papers contain nuclear bomb plans and may provide links between Swiss engineers and the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Urs, Marco and Friedrich Tinner have been the subject of allegations that they contributed to a nuclear smuggling ring run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear programme, that supplied Libya with weapons components. The Tinners have maintained their innocence.
At the centre of the investigation is a dossier that contains roughly 100 pages of documents so sensitive that the government wants them destroyed. The original files were secretly shredded in November 2007 but copies surfaced last December.
In July, investigators and Bern cantonal police raided federal offices which housed the copies in a move that exposed tension between Switzerland’s executive and judiciary branches. Lawyers, parliamentarians and the government were then locked in a showdown over what should happen to the documents.
Last week, the federal criminal court opened the way for magistrates to look at the files, provided federal ministers gave their authorisation.
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Conflict over nuclear files intensifies
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At the centre of the showdown is a dossier that contains roughly 100 pages of documents so sensitive that the government wants them destroyed. The original files were indeed shredded secretly in November 2007 but copies surfaced last December. On Thursday investigators and cantonal police stormed into federal security offices in Bern and seized a…
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Speaking publicly for the first time since his release from prison, Urs Tinner said he told the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 that Libya was about to receive equipment needed to make an atomic bomb. Agents at a shipyard in Italy shortly afterward seized centrifuges bound for the African country. The bust eventually forced Libyan…
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On Friday the federal criminal court rejected a bail application by two Swiss brothers accused of supplying parts for Libya’s nuclear weapons programme. Experts criticise the lack of separation of powers and mounting speculation that the United States, concerned that its agents were implicated, had demanded the documents be destroyed. “The government is not above…
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The centre-right Radical politician, best known for his Council of Europe report on secret CIA rendition flights, and head of the Swiss Senate foreign affairs committee, told swissinfo that the cabinet probably bowed to pressure from the United States. The Swiss government has been under attack since it was revealed last month that it had…
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From the post-war era to the beginning of the 1970s, cigarette smuggling was one the most flourishing trades in the border area between the Italian-speaking Swiss canton of Ticino and Italy. Smugglers often trudged long distances over difficult terrain to escape the Italian tax police. (Photos: RDB/Schleiniger)
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If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.