The prosecutor who was investigating FIFA president Gianni Infantino was eliminated for public statements that were biased from the head of world soccer’s governing body, a Swiss court announced on Wednesday.
Stefan Keller opened a query into Infantino in July 2020 more than three casual meetings with the former head of the Korean public prosecutor’s office (MPC). In March he began investigating Infantino’s usage of a personal jet compensated for by FIFA.
Keller had not yet begun a formal event in either case.
The Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona”admitted Gianni Infantino’s petition for recusal against Stefan Keller” at a decision taken last Friday and printed on its site on Wednesday.
The decision centred on four media communications along with a statement to a legal journal by Keller, that, the court said in its judgement, didn’t constitute”objective, neutral and correct data in the public interest”.
“It seemed clear that there was not only the mere look of a possible bias but that he had been in fact biased towards the offender,” stated the choice.
Specifically, Keller had noted in mid-December” signs” the FIFA boss had been guilty of”unfair direction” for using a private jet, financed by the entire body, to fly between Suriname and Switzerland in 2017.
FIFA was quick to welcome the judgment.
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“Mr Keller had obviously violated the presumption of innocence and damaged the standing of the FIFA President, against his private rights protected under law enforcement,” it said in a statement.
Keller refused the accusation in the judgment that he”communicated misleading and factually incorrect info”.
Keller stated in his statement he would go over the additional process with the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (AB-BA) and with the Judicial Commission.
“It must be clarified what impacts the choice from Bellinzona will have about the various proceedings in addition to the other parties involved,” said his announcement.
The Swiss Federal Criminal Court has not yet examined FIFA’s request for the”nullity of the procedural acts completed thus far”.
Infantino was being investigated for”incitement to abuse ability”, “violation of official secrecy” and”obstruction of criminal proceeding”.
Keller has been appointed as an “extraordinary prosecutor” in July last year to investigate suspicions of collusion between FIFA and the former head of the MPC, Michael Lauber.
The investigations focused on three key meetings held in 2016 and 2017 involving Lauber and Infantino.
Lauber resigned last summer while FIFA’s internal justice system cleared Infantino.
The executive Infantino simply wanted to reveal to Lauber how much FIFA had altered since the”corrupt” rule of his predecessor Sepp Blatter.
