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‘Absurd’ Memory Gap Prompts Swiss A-G to Offer to Resign

‘Absurd’ Memory Gap Prompts Swiss Prosecutor to Offer to Resign

Switzerland’s attorney general offered to resign after judges found that he had been negligent, made false statements and “knowingly concealed” a meeting with FIFA boss Gianni Infantino in the course of his investigation into corruption at soccer’s global governing body.

The Federal Administrative Court on Friday upheld many of the findings from the Swiss watchdog that oversees the office of Attorney General Michael Lauber. It said he failed to recuse himself from the FIFA investigation on four occasions “as a result of gross negligence on his part.”

More damning was the court’s finding that Lauber’s inability, and that of at least three others, to remember a June 2017 meeting was an “absurd” gap in memory and that Lauber internationally made false statements about the meeting in an attempt to conceal it.

In a statement posted on the Swiss government’s website just before the court’s ruling was released, Lauber said he accepts the court’s sanction of a pay cut of 5% but said “I continue to reject the accusation of lying.”

“However, the fact that I am not believed in the capacity of attorney general is detrimental” to the office, Lauber said. He said he wouldn’t comment further and discussions of his resignation offer will be taken up with the Swiss government’s judiciary commission.

As Switzerland’s top prosecutor, Lauber’s led investigations into the role of Swiss banks in corruption scandals at oil producers Petrobras in Brazil and PDVSA in Venezuela.

But those cases have been overshadowed by his own flawed investigation into soccer’s governing body. Whereas he once stood next to former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to announce a sweeping probe into FIFA corruption, days after the Zurich arrests of top soccer executives, it was the mishandling of the probe that has dogged him in recent years.

FIFA said in a statement that it was legitimate and legal to meet with Lauber.

Lauber was narrowly re-elected in September to a third term despite the scandal over the undisclosed meetings. He said he didn’t conceal the meetings with Infantino and that they were necessary for the criminal probe.

But it was a third meeting with Infantino in 2017 that Lauber didn’t immediately admit to prompted more concern for investigators. Of particular interest was the fact that he could not apparently recall having the meeting, according to an interview he gave to Swiss radio.

The fact he knowingly concealed that meeting on June 16, 2017 represents a “serious breach of Lauber’s official duty and duty of loyalty,” the court ruled.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.