Lausanne (AFP)
A Swiss prosecutor on Thursday noted "indications" according to which the president of Fifa Gianni Infantino was guilty of "unfair management" with a flight in a private jet paid for by the football authority.
This new accusation, which is not formally the subject of an investigation, is added to the procedure opened on July 30 against the Italian-Swiss leader for "incitement to abuse of authority", to the "violation of official secrecy "and" obstruction of criminal proceedings ".
"Based on the investigations carried out" about a private jet flight between Suriname and Switzerland, dating back to 2017, "Stefan Keller is of the opinion that a criminal investigation should be opened for unfair management", indicate his services in a press release.
The magistrate is however "not competent to open such an investigation" and therefore transmitted his conclusions to the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Confederation (MPC), the Swiss Federal Prosecutor's Office.
President of the Supreme Court of the canton of Obwalden, in the center of the country, Stefan Keller was appointed "extraordinary prosecutor" in early July to investigate suspicions of collusion between Fifa and former MPC chief Michael Lauber.
His investigations relate to three secret meetings held in 2016 and 2017 between Mr. Lauber and Gianni Infantino, not mentioned in the multiple proceedings opened since 2015 on world football, in which Fifa is a civil party.
The case forced Michael Lauber to resign this summer, but FIFA's internal justice cleared Mr. Infantino in mid-August.
The leader has since deemed "absurd" to be implicated for having met a magistrate and assures that he just wanted to show Mr. Lauber how much Fifa had changed since the "corrupt officials" of the era Sepp Blatter, his predecessor.
As part of this investigation, Stefan Keller heard Mr. Blatter on Wednesday as "a person called upon to provide information", while the 84-year-old Swiss has himself been prosecuted since 2015 for "unfair management".
"This session went very well," Blatter said Wednesday after the hearing, in the presence of his successor's lawyer and another prosecutor implicated for his links with Gianni Infantino, Rinaldo Arnold.
© 2020 AFP