WORLD : Former Swiss Official Cleared of Violating Secrecy Policies
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LAUSANNE, Switzerland — The nation’s highest court today cleared former Justice Minister Elisabeth Kopp of violating official secrecy, a charge that ended her chances for the presidency.
The five-judge panel of the Federal Criminal Court ruled that Kopp had not violated official secrecy laws when she made a telephone call warning her husband to quit a company suspected of laundering drug profits.
The court said it could not be proved that she revealed secret information deliberately.
A guilty verdict would have made Kopp Switzerland’s first government minister disgraced by a criminal conviction.
Kopp, 53, was forced to resign from the government in the unprecedented case that cost her a chance to be Switzerland’s first woman president.
Kopp telephoned her husband Hans on Oct. 27, 1988, to tell him to resign as vice chairman of Shakarchi Trading Co., a Zurich-based foreign exchange and gold-trading firm about to be linked to a “Lebanon Connection” money-laundering probe.
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