BEVERLY HILLS, May 05, (THEWILL) – World football governing body, FIFA, on Wednesday, welcomed the decision of the Swiss Federal Criminal Court (FCC) to remove Stefan Keller from his position as extraordinary Federal Prosecutor.
Keller was appointed to look into certain meetings that the former Swiss Attorney General, Michael Lauber, had with the FIFA President, Gianni Infantino.
However, instead of doing this, Keller, who has yet to even interview the FIFA President after nine months, started looking into things that have nothing to do with his appointed mandate.
This declaration of the FCC reflected their conclusion that the bias of Keller, as demonstrated by his various media releases, repeated procedural errors, and consistent denial of rights, could not guarantee a fair process while Keller remained as prosecutor.
The FCC stated that by attempting to look into matters that had nothing to do with his mandate and then publicly raising his own personal suspicions about them without any objective justification, it was obvious that Keller clearly violated the presumption of innocence and damaged the standing of the FIFA President, contrary to his personal rights protected under the law.
Furthermore, the Court emphasised that for a public prosecutor to communicate distorting, injurious, misleading and factually incorrect information, as well as mere polemics and propaganda, is plainly inadmissible in any shape, manner or form.
It was the Court’s submission that every party has the right to have his or her case decided by an impartial, unbiased and unprejudiced judge, acting in accordance with the principles of fairness and good faith. Given his pattern of conduct, in particular with regard to his various media communications, Keller did not satisfy even these most basic of legal standards.
Taken as a whole, the impression was created that Mr Keller was preoccupied with casting himself in a positive light and engaged in one-sided reporting to the detriment of the FIFA President. The FCC found that, contrary to Keller’s claims, this had nothing to do with objective communication that might have been justified in the public interest.
It was against this background that Keller was removed from his position and ordered to pay the sum of CHF 5,000 to the FIFA President, to cover the costs of the proceedings.
As previously and consistently communicated, both FIFA and the FIFA President are fully available to cooperate with the authorities, whether that concerns meetings that the FIFA President had with the former Attorney General of Switzerland, or anything else.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
