The Lynx Case (Swiss Press Text 2012, by Jérôme Martinu Martinu) - Swiss Press Award

Neue Luzerner Zeitung

Jérôme Martinu Martinu

Since June 2011, the Neue Luzerner Zeitung has published a series of articles spanning several months, highlighting various errors and inconsistencies in the public prosecutor's investigation and in the police's actions and statements in the Luchs case. Among other things, the Schwyz Cantonal Court found and criticized that the proceedings surrounding the botched deployment of the Lucerne police special unit, the Luchs, in June 2005 were unnecessarily delayed and that important interviews were not conducted. This led to the open outbreak of a long-simmering conflict between the Schwyz public prosecutor's office and the courts. The government subsequently announced an external investigation. Since September, it has been known that Dick Marty (66), a former Ticino member of the Council of States and former public prosecutor, will lead the investigation. Results are expected in the first quarter of 2012. It happened in June 2005: The Lucerne police's Luchs intervention unit arrested two young men in Arth. The police officers dragged the two, then 17 and 22 years old, out of the car and roughly handcuffed them. They mistook one of them for an internationally wanted criminal, which later turns out to be a mistake. The two men, of Serbian and Montenegrin nationality, were injured during the intervention and filed a lawsuit against the Lucerne police. A court hearing has finally been scheduled, more than six and a half years after the incident: the two police officers responsible for the operation will appear before the Schwyz Criminal Court on January 19. The charges include abuse of office, false imprisonment, kidnapping, and failure to provide emergency assistance. The presumption of innocence applies.