GENEVA: Switzerland’s chief economic crimes prosecutor was suspended last week while leading an investigation into corruption linked to FIFA, the federal prosecutor’s office said on Friday.

It was unclear how Olivier Thormann’s suspension will affect the integrity of ongoing criminal proceedings.

Football officials under criminal suspicion include former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, German soccer great Franz Beckenbauer and Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the chairman of Paris Saint-Germain and Qatar-owned BeIN Media Group.

They deny wrongdoing and have not been charged.

Federal Prosector Michael Lauber received information in late September including allegations against Thormann, the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) said in a statement on Friday.

“The information on which this decision is based is related to the OAG’s criminal proceedings in the field of football and its governing body FIFA,” it said.

“At the end of September 2018, Federal Prosecutor Michael Lauber received information with allegations against the head of the economic crime division of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office,” it added.

It said the information “may be of criminal relevance”, without elaborating.

It said it took the precautionary steps as standard measures to preserve the integrity of the OAG and its investigations and that Thormann, who left by mutual agreement, enjoyed the presumption of innocence.

Thormann could not be reached via the OAG for comment. His private telephone number is not listed.

The OAG has filed no charges in its investigations into FIFA to date.

That investigation started in November 2014 when FIFA filed a criminal complaint into suspected money laundering in the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding contests.

The case grew to include all FIFA business, working with American prosecutors who unsealed indictments and guilty pleas in May 2015. Seven football officials, including two FIFA vice-presidents, were arrested on the day of early-morning raids at a five-star hotel in Zurich.

Swiss officials later opened criminal proceedings against Blatter for suspected mismanagement. Beckenbauer and other organisers of the 2006 World Cup are linked to a suspicious payment of 6.7 million euros ($7.6 million).

Al-Khelaifi was questioned in Bern in October 2017 about the suspected bribery of former FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke to help secure a 2026-2030 World Cup broadcasting rights deal for BeIN.

The OAG said the allegations about Thormann had nothing to do with two meetings between leaders of the OAG and FIFA that became public following publication of the so-called “Football Leaks” this month.

Thormann’s suspension comes days after Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger reported a possible conflict of interest between another Swiss prosecutor, Rinaldo Arnold, and current FIFA president Gianni Infantino.

Infantino allegedly invited Arnold to attend the World Cup in Russia, the 2016 FIFA Congress in Mexico and the Champions League final in Milan that year, in exchange for organising meetings with OAG chiefs.

The OAG said it had appointed a special prosecutor to help clarify the situation.

Niklaus Oberholzer, who heads OAG’s surveillance unit, told the ATS news agency that the former top prosecutor in the canton of Zurich, Ulrich Wedera, would serve as special prosecutor.

He stressed there was nothing unusual in the appointment.

“We turn to a special prosecutor if clarifications are needed, or if there may be a case of a criminal offence,” he said.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2018