Swiss neutrality tarnished by spy scandal

GENEVA: Outraged commentators warned on Wednesday that revelations the CIA and Germany’s intelligence service had for decades used a Swiss encryption company for spying had seriously damaged Switzerland’s cherished reputation for neutrality.

Critics voiced particular concern that Bern may have been at least tacitly complicit in the secret operation. Switzerland, which takes pride in its neutral and non-aligned status, “was hosting a quasi ally intelligence agency,” the Tribune de Geneve daily said in an editorial.

Swiss officials “very likely” knew what was going on but “closed their eyes” in the name of neutrality, it added.

Home to the UN European headquarters and the International Committee of the Red Cross, Switzerland is recognised worldwide for its standing as an honest broker.

But media revelations on Tuesday told how for decades the US and West German intelligence services raked in the top-secret communications of governments around the world.

The Trojan horse they used was their hidden control of Swiss encryption company Crypto AG.

The company supplied devices for encoded communications to some 120 countries from after World War II to the beginning of this century, including Iran, South American governments, and India and Pakistan.

Unknown to those governments, Crypto was secretly acquired in 1970 by the US Central Intelligence Agency together with the then West Germany’s BND Federal Intelligence Service.