Swiss justice has been investigating possible financing of Hamas from the country for weeks, despite the fact that Bern does not classify the organization as terrorist, the prosecutor general said this Saturday.
The investigation was launched “several weeks” before the Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7, Stefan Blattler said on Swiss public radio SRF, citing AFP, without providing details.
Swiss prosecutors later told AFP that the investigation concerns “suspicions of Hamas funding from Switzerland.”
According to AFP, the investigation is expected to be complex given Switzerland’s stance towards Hamas.
Since October 7, there have been increasing calls in Switzerland for the Federal Council (government) to classify the organization as terrorist.
A Middle East task force created after the attacks is responsible for studying the possibility of classifying the Islamist organization as a terrorist group, but the government has given no timeline for this purpose.
The Federal Council considered that it could only ban those organizations that were also banned by the UN, explained Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis. “We did this in 2015 with al-Qaeda under a special law that was suspended at the end of last year.”
Currently, only Al-Qaeda, Islamic State and other related organizations are banned in Switzerland.
The UDC, a Swiss far-right party, demands that Hamas members and their supporters in Switzerland be immediately placed under surveillance by the intelligence services of the Swiss Confederation.
All parliamentary attempts to ban Hamas have failed. The Lower House Committee submitted a proposal for the same purpose.
On October 7, the Islamist group Hamas launched a surprise attack on southern Israel, firing thousands of rockets and invading armed militias, taking two hundred hostages.
In response, Israel declared war on Hamas, the movement that has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 and which the European Union and the United States classify as terrorist, bombing several of the group’s infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and imposing a complete blockade of the area, cutting off water, fuel and electricity.
The Rafah terminal, located in southern Gaza and the only crossing into Egypt, will allow humanitarian aid to reach Palestinian territory.
The conflict has already resulted in the death and injury of thousands of military personnel and civilians in both territories.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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