Swiss Probe Turkish Minister for Denying the Armenian Genocide

ZURICH — The Prosecutor’s Office of Switzerland’s Canton of Zurich launched an inquiry against Turkey’s Minister for EU Affairs, Egemen Bagis.
The proceedings were launched after Bagis had stated in Zurich, and while returning from the World Economic Forum in Davos, that there was no Armenian Genocide, Hurriyet daily of Turkey informs.
And in an interview with Anadolu News Agency, Zurich’s Prosecutor Christine Braunschweig confirmed the launching of this investigation against the Turkish minister, and stressed that it is underway pursuant to the Swiss Criminal Code.
In Zurich, Egemen Bagis had said: “I declare in Switzerland today that the events of 1915 were not genocide. Let them come and arrest me. Those laws are nothing but a piece of paper.”
Under Swiss law it is a crime to deny that the killings of up to 1.5 million Armenians during World War One constituted an act of genocide.
A Turkish Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, later said Turkey had summoned the Swiss ambassador to Ankara to tell him that the probe was “unacceptable.”