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Guatemalan police chief in Geneva murder trial

Guatemala's former police chief Erwin Sperisen went on trial on Thursday in Switzerland on charges of having planned and taken part in the murder of 10 prisoners in the Central American country.

Published: 15 May 2014 19:50 CEST
Guatemalan police chief in Geneva murder trial
Photto: Wikimedia Commons

Sperisen, 43, holds both Swiss and Guatemalan citizenship and therefore cannot be extradited from Switzerland to stand trial in his homeland.
   
But under Swiss law, any citizen of the Alpine country can be tried at home for alleged crimes committed abroad.
   
Sperisen is accused of involvement in the summary execution and subsequent cover-up of the murder of seven inmates in a jail in 2006, and of three escaped prisoners in 2005.
   
Geneva prosecutors charge that he personally shot one of the 2006 victims.
   
Sperisen denies the charges, which could carry a life sentence.
   
Appointed police chief in 2004, he left Guatemala in 2007 amid a scandal that saw him and the country's interior minister Carlos Vielmann resign that March, two weeks after the murder of three members of parliament from El Salvador.
   
Sperisen's paternal grandfather was a Swiss immigrant to Guatemala, giving him the right to Swiss citizenship.
   
His father is Guatemala's ambassador to the World Trade Organization, which is based in Geneva, and Sperisen was arrested in the city in August 2012.
   
He has been in jail since then, with Geneva justice authorities saying there is too great a risk that he will flee Switzerland if he is released on bail.
   
The trial is expected to last three weeks.
   
A Frenchman who was detained in the prison where the 2006 killings took place is scheduled to take the witness stand next Wednesday.
   
Sperisen's former right-hand man, Javier Figueroa, has reportedly also been called as a witness.
   
Figueroa was prosecuted by Austrian justice authorities on similar charges, and acquitted in 2013.
   
Former interior minister Vielmann, who holds dual Guatemalan and Spanish citizenship, now lives in Spain and is due to be tried by a court there over the prisoner killings.

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CRIME

‘Your permit is invalid’: Foreigners in Switzerland warned to avoid new scam

Scores of foreign residents have received an email recently telling them their residency rights in Switzerland have been revoked.

Published: 26 April 2024 11:17 CEST
Updated: 2 May 2024 15:04 CEST
'Your permit is invalid': Foreigners in Switzerland warned to avoid new scam

A number of foreign nationals, especially in the German-speaking part of the country, have received an official-looking letter, purportedly from the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) informing them that the Free Movement of People agreement between Switzerland and the EU has been nullified, and therefore “your residence permit is no longer valid.”

Faced with enquiries from concerned recipients, SEM responded that the letter is fake, advising recipients to ignore it and, above all, not to click on the QR code on the top.

“Fake letters from the SEM have been circulating since the beginning of this week,” the immigration authority said on its website as well as on X (formerly Twitter).  

“The letter has no impact on the recipient’s  residence status,” SEM added.

Fake jobs, real threats

However, this is only the latest scam perpetrated in the name of SEM.

There have been others in the past.

For instance, many foreigners have also received emails from addresses swissimmigration@consultant or eu_immigration@consultant, that pretend to be the Swiss immigration authority.

“In most cases, a fictitious job in the hotel industry is offered, with the senders demanding payment of 300 to 1,000 euros for a permit in Switzerland and for health and accident insurance,” SEM reported.

The first clue that this email doesn’t come from  SEM, which is part of Switzerland’s government, is that it is asking for payment in euros. If the scammers were smarter, they’d demand Swiss francs.

“These e-mails do not come from the SEM and should be considered as an attempt at fraud,” the agency said. 

Extortion attempt

And a few years ago, a number of foreigners received emails coming allegedly from SEM, Swiss border control authorities, or even the Federal Office of Police (Fedpol).

They threatened to revoke the victim’s residence permit or even expel them from the country altogether if they didn’t pay a certain sum of money into an anonymous account.

Needless to say, no government authority would ever resort to blackmail or demand payment for such ‘services’.

So a good rule to remember (for foreigners and Swiss alike) is that if threats and pressure are involved, letters / emails / phone calls ( WhatsUp messages are more than likely scams.
 
READ ALSO: The common scams foreigners in Switzerland need to be aware of 

Don’t respond

SEM as well as police urge everyone contacted by scammers, by whatever means to:

  • Ignore these messages by hanging up the phone and / or deleting emails, moving them to the Spam folder
  • Never give out your credit card number or bank account information to people you don’t know
  • If you did give your card number, contact your credit card company immediately to have the card blocked. Likewise, if you gave out your banking details, get in touch with your bank.
  • In the event of threats of extortion attempts, consider filing a criminal complaint. You can search for police stations in your area on the Police website. 
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