Epress.am News from Armenia
Swiss prosecutors have dropped charges against Turkey’s EU Affairs Minister Egemen Bağış, instigated after he denied Ottoman Turks committed genocide against Armenians nearly 100 years ago, because he is protected by diplomatic immunity, Euronews reports.
Zurich prosecutors began investigating Bağış after comments he made at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, and also at a concert in Zurich. Swiss anti-racism legislation outlaws genocide denial.
Turkey summoned the Swiss ambassador in Ankara to complain after the investigation was launched.
In January, in response to a question from a French journalist on what he thought of a bill criminalizing denial of the Armenian Genocide adopted by the French Senate in January, Bağış said: “Our prime minister has said what needs to be said about this. This resolution is null and void for us. We believe that there are more people with common sense than those without it in France. Switzerland is another country where it is a crime to deny the so-called genocide. Here I am in Switzerland today, and I’m saying the 1915 incidents did not amount to genocide. Let them come arrest me.”
“After consulting with the Swiss foreign ministry, the prosecutor has concluded that criminal charges against Egemen Bağış cannot be pursued because, as a Turkish EU minister, he enjoyed immunity during his entire stay in Switzerland,” the Zurich prosecutor said in a statement on Monday.