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Swiss parliament narrowly reappoints top prosecutor despite FIFA probe

The Swiss parliament on Wednesday voted to extend the mandate of attorney general Michael Lauber, despite suspicion of misconduct in his handling of the massive corruption investigation targeting FIFA.

Swiss parliament narrowly reappoints top prosecutor despite FIFA probe
Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP

With just 129 out of a possible 243 parliamentary votes in favour, Lauber saw his mandate renewed for an additional four years come January. 

The parliament's judiciary commission had earlier this month recommended not handing the 53-year-old prosecutor a second term after investigators opened a disciplinary investigation looking into a series of secret meetings that he had with FIFA president Gianni Infantino in the midst of a corruption probe into football's world governing body.

That recommendation came after the Swiss Federal Criminal Court ruled in June that he had committed professional misconduct by failing to report and document several meetings with Infantino, and ordered him to recuse himself from the case.

Two Lauber-Infantino meetings were exposed last year by “Football Leaks”, a cross-border investigation by several European news organisations.

The body that oversees Lauber's office, known as the AS-MPC, has said that those two 2016 contacts, held shortly after Infantino took charge of FIFA from the disgraced Sepp Blatter, were “not problematic”. But during the inquiry into those two meetings, Lauber told the oversight body that he had had no other informal contacts with Infantino.

Then Swiss media reported a third Lauber-Infantino meeting in January 2017. Switzerland's FIFA investigation concerns alleged misconduct that occurred before Infantino replaced Blatter in 2016.

Lauber's office has steadfastly defended the Infantino meetings, insisting they were logistically necessary given the scope of the FIFA graft probe.

Switzerland has pursued a number of cases since a raid on a luxury hotel in Zurich in May 2015 led to the arrests of a several FIFA executives and exposed a corrupt underbelly in world football.

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SPORT

IN PICTURES: Runners take on Swiss glacier race despite melt

Hundreds of runners braved a lung-busting ascent into the Alps in Switzerland's Glacier 3000 Run on Saturday, albeit on a shortened course due to summer heatwaves melting the ice.

IN PICTURES: Runners take on Swiss glacier race despite melt

The event’s 14th edition was back without limitations after being cancelled in 2020 due to Covid-19 and run in 2021 with restrictions imposed due to the pandemic.

The race is normally run over 26.2 kilometres but was contested on a slightly modified 25.2km course this year due to the glacier melting, with the last pass over its surface shortened.

Runners make their way under a ski lift  on the glacier run in Switzerland

Runners make their way under a ski lift during the last kilometres of the Glacier 3000 run. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini / AFP)

“The accelerated melting of the top layer of the glacier has created a camber and a soft layer which the runner sinks into,” said race director Oliver Hermann.

“Rather than intervening to flatten the track, we preferred to deviate the course.”

Runners on last stretch of Switzerland's glacier run

On the final stretch of this year’s shortened course. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini / AFP)

The finish line is 1,886 metres higher than the start, at nearly 3,000 metres up in the mountains by the Scex Rouge peak.

READ ALSO: Heatwaves close off classic Swiss and Italian Alpine hiking routes

The route begins in the jet-set ski resort town of Gstaad, at 1,050 metres above sea level.

It passes through forests, green mountain pastures before heading into rocky lunar-like landscapes and taking in the Tsanfleuron Glacier.

The course follows the Saane river upstream for 15 km before climbing up 1,800 metres over the remaining 10 km to the finish line — at an altitude of 2,936 metres.

A couple hold their hands while walking on the melting Tsanfleuron Glacier above Les Diablerets

A couple hold hands while walking on the melting Tsanfleuron Glacier above Les Diablerets, where the Glacier 3000 Run took place on August 6th. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini / AFP)

Some 311 men and 98 women completed the individual course, while 50 two-person teams also took part.

READ ALSO: Why Switzerland’s glaciers are melting faster than usual this summer

The first man to finish was Kenyan competitor Geoffrey Ndungu in two hours and 17 minutes. He had finished in second place last year.

He was followed by compatriot Abraham Ebenyo Ekwam in 2:21 and then Switzerland’s Jonathan Schmid in 2:23.

Victoria Kreuzer was the first woman to finish, in 2:46, ahead of Nicole Schindler and Pascale Rebsamen — a Swiss clean sweep.

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