Swiss secret-files scandal: police secretly monitored ministers for decades

Swiss authorities are facing a major revelation after an investigation found that police secretly monitored dozens of government officials for decades.

Records show that surveillance extended from 1930 until 1989 and covered at least 39 federal ministers in a case now referred to as the "secret files scandal". The reporting follows an analysis of hundreds of thousands of surveillance files drawn from the Federal Archives and from federal and cantonal police services, carried out by a weekly newspaper.

Scope and targets

According to the review, many dossiers were opened already when future ministers began political activity as young people. Targets named in the files include prominent figures who later held top government posts.

Among those monitored was Ruth Dreifuss, later President of the Confederation and a federal councillor from 1993 to 2002; she attracted police attention because of her opposition to the Vietnam War. Elisabeth Kopp, who served from 1984 to 1989 as the country's first woman federal councillor, was also followed after police noted a business investment by her father in Hungary.

The surveillance programme was discontinued in 1989 after mounting public pressure. Moritz Leuenberger, who served as a federal councillor from 1995 to 2010 and chaired the parliamentary commission that investigated the matter, is credited with helping bring an end to the practices.

Leuenberger himself was subject to a police file. He told reporters that he had seen only parts of the records documenting surveillance of his movements and contacts. "Mainly I read banalities, inaccuracies and even deliberate lies," he said. He added that he had been indirectly linked in the files to people with whom, he asserted, he had no connection: "Such entries are typical of the mixture of suspicions and false accusations that constantly appeared in the files."

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