A third secret meeting with Fifa President Infantino

It was a remarkable performance by a Federal Prosecutor Michael Lauber : Last November, he stepped in front of the assembled national and international press, and vehemently defended his practice of meeting informally with parties Involved in a large criminal case. This is elementary to do such a procedure at all, said Lauber.

The appearance was a reaction to the revelations from the data leak Football Leaks. Documents from the inner-most of the world football Association (Fifa) had shown that had made Lauber in the spring of 2016, twice with the Fifa President Gianni Infantino : once in the Bernese Nobel hotel Schweizerhof and once in a restaurant in the Zurich train station. Protocols of the Meetings do not exist.

Lauber said in November, the second Meeting with Infantino had been "exhaustive". The same Information was also previously Lauber media office in writing. Now: That's not true. 16. June 2017 travelled Infantino Schweizerhof again to Bern to a secret meeting in the Hotel.

Infantino (R) during a friendly match in 2016. Photo: Ennio Leanza (Keystone)

This third Meeting is now known, because of the Nidwalden government was met with attorney Damian count in a criminal case. The procedure was directed against the Valais Prosecutor and Infantino-friend Rinaldo Arnold for passive bribery. Yesterday, the authorities informed that the count had set it.

According to the Setting has the Federal advocacy the third secret to first make the written explanations of the special investigator. Only when the count nachhakte, "let the office of the attorney General that apparently, at 16.June 2017 have actually taken place a further Meeting in the Hotel Schweizerhof". In the available also a text from Rinaldo Arnold, who has arranged the Meeting is cited in the media, the chief of the office of the attorney General: "Infantinos train has been delayed. We will be a couple of minutes later. To the same. Greeting."

No memory

What was discussed at the Meeting, remains a mystery. In his examination "could not remember Arnold at this Meeting or the fact that he had been involved. Infantino liked to remember as little of such a meeting with the office of the attorney General" in the Setting.

A demand at the office of the attorney General makes the puzzle even more. The media office confirmed the Meeting, namely, not directly, but writes only that she was pushed "to notes, which on a further Meeting between the Federal Prosecutor Michael Lauber and the President of Fifa, Gianni Infantino, in June 2017, close".

The Supervisory authority of the office of the attorney General (AB-BA) has been oriented in mid-March about the case and preliminary investigation. President Hanspeter Uster, said: "We will clarify all the issues Meeting about the alleged third party. The AB-BA introduced to Michael Lauber, in November 2018, the question of whether there had been further discussions with representatives of the Fifa or the Uefa. Lauber replied at the time: no, never at the level of the Federal lawyer."

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 12.04.2019, 22:46 PM