The Federal Prosecutor's Office insists on guilt for Blatter and Platini

The criminal authorities in Baselland have to align the appeal process against Sepp Blatter, 88, and Michel Platini, 69. In advance there were discussions about missing parking spaces at the courthouse in Muttenz BL, foreign journalists suffer from the process. Others find it difficult with the media hall to be completed for an hour over lunch. The federal prosecutor of the federal government, Thomas Hildbrand, complained in the courtroom, because the translator sitting behind him, who sat next to Platini and whispered in the ear, disrupted him acoustically.

Collector Thormann as a witness

The man, who caused all this circus in the canton of Baselland, was asked as a witness on the second day in the fraud process: Olivier Thormann, President of the Commerce of Appeal at the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona, which should have been carried out. However, because Thormann once opened the criminal proceedings as a federal prosecutor under controversial circumstances, a special court composed of cantonal senior court president had to work. As President, the Los Roland Hofmann from Baselland met. Therefore, the process takes place in its canton.

So Baselland is now bravely struggling on the federal datters.

The Witness Thormann dealt on Tuesday the question under which circumstances he opened the procedure in 2015. He himself states that he was made aware of the « extraordinary payment » to Platini by the then FIFA CFO, Markus Kattner. What Kattner, he was invited as a witness, denied. The question has always been in the room whether the Federal Prosecutor's Office, for example by today's FIFA boss Gianni Infantino, was made aware of the payment.

Plati's lawyer Dominic Nellen stated that he did not record Kattner's note, although he was so important. And that he later interviewed Kattner, but of all places not to this « extraordinary » note. Thormann stated that that was part of the strategy and his way of working, not to log and not to address the witnesses.

In the survey by the court, a statement that Thormann made in the first trial proved to be unsustainable. Then he had spoken of a file note that Kattner handed over to him. There is no such note; Thormann said he may have expressed himself incorrectly. The topic in the survey by Nelle was also whether the files confiscated by the Federal Prosecutor's office were still sealed when they were used.

His last plea: Hildbrand in attack mode

The evidence negotiation was concluded. In the afternoon, the federal prosecutor, Thomas Hildbrand, 69, presented his plea. And there it got heated. The federal prosecutor of the federal prosecutor, who was enthusiastic about leaf, talked into the fire for over three hours. He initially referred to the realm of the fairy tales that the federal prosecutor had had FIFA spanned for political reasons to open the procedure.

Then he left a good thread on the first instance judgment of the criminal chamber in Bellinzona, which Blatter and Platini had acquitted from the accusation of fraud in 2022. Hildbrand spoke of numerous blatant “contradictory findings”, of “comparing non -reality”, of “non -world argument”, from “ridiculous” to “unsustainable” evaluations. Among other things, he spoke of “ordered” testimonies from Blatter's environment, of the inability of the court to correctly weight them.

Contrary to the claims of Blatter and Platini, there was never an oral contract for an annual fee of one million as a consultant. The court had subsequently weighted the accused of more beautiful statements than the first. There was only one contract, that of 1999 that contained compensation per year of CHF 300,000, said Hildbrand.

A year and eight months for Blatter and Platini

The Federal Prosecutor's Office calls for full abolition of acquittal in the first instance and conviction for fraud. Hildbrand demands a trial period of one year and eight months of eight months for Blatter, a trial period for two years. He demands the same punishment for Platini. Plus compensation and costs.

On Wednesday it should be similarly heated when the defenders of Blatter and Platini, Lorenz Erni and Dominic are pleading.

The process deals with a payment of 2 million of the FIFA under Sepp Blatter to Michel Platini for advisory activity between 1999 and 2002. In the first instance, the two were acquitted of all allegations. The judgment is scheduled to be announced on March 25th.