- Title: SWITZERLAND: SWISS AUTHORITIES INVESTIGATE THE KILLING OF AN EGYPTIAN DIPLOMAT
- Date: 14th November 1995
- Summary: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND (NOVEMBER 14, 1995) REUTERS TELEVISION (RTV) - ACCESS ALL 1. SV EXTERIOR VIEWS OF GARAGE AT AHMED ALAA NAZMI'S HOME 0.08 2. SV POLICE AT SCENE 0.12 3. SV INTERIOR VIEWS OF GARAGE 0.19 4. SV BULLET MARKS ON GROUND RINGED IN YELLOW 0.46 5. SCU SWISS FEDERAL PROSECUTOR CARLA DEL PONTE SPEAKING (FRENCH) 0.56 6. SV VICTIM'S LETTERBOX 1.03 7. SV EGYPTIAN AMBASSADOR MOUNIR ZAHRAN ARRIVING 1.24 8. SCU MOUNIR ZAHRAN EXPLAINING WHO AHMED ALAA NAZMI WAS, AND SAYING INVESTIGATIONS WERE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF SWISS AUTHORITIES (ENGLISH) 1.53 9. SV POLICE SEACHING FOR CLUES AT SCENE OF KILLING 2.00 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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- Location: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
- City:
- Country: Switzerland
- Reuters ID: LVA6GUJ9MDPJS4V1Y7L7KI7RJE8T
- Aspect Ratio: 4:3
- Story Text: Swiss authorities launched a top-level probe on Tuesday (November 14) into the killing of an Egyptian diplomat in a move suggesting police believed he had been the victim of a political assassination.
The diplomat, 42-year-old Ahmed Alaa Nazmi, was gunned down late on Monday in the underground garage of the apartment building where he lived on the seventh floor with his wife and four-month-old baby girl.
Switzerland's Federal Prosecutor General Carla del Ponte came to Geneva from Berne to head the investigation, but declined to give any details after visiting the crime scene with leading detectives on Tuesday.
Police said the shooting took place between 9 and 11 p.m. on Monday (November 13). Informed diplomats said Nazmi, a commercial counsellor, had been hit by six bullets and appeared to have died instantly.
Journalists who went into the garage on Tuesday saw seven cartridges ringed by police in chalk and traces of blood leading from the parking area to a lift, suggesting the Egyptian had tried to escape his killer or killers.
The diplomats described Nazmi, who belonged to the Egyptian delegation to the World Trade Organisation, as "a nice quiet man".
Egyptian mission officials said "nothing was being ruled out" as a motive.
Squads of police combed the gardens around the building on Tuesday, but a spokesman on the spot declined comment. He said all details would come from del Ponte.
In Cairo, an External Trade Ministry spokesman said Nazmi had joined the foreign service as a commercial attache in 1976 and had worked in the Egyptian embassy in Washington and the consulate in Hamburg before being posted to Geneva.
If a political motive is confirmed, it would be the first such killing in Switzerland since April 1990 when Kazem Rajavi, a leading opponent of the Iranian government, was gunned down outside his home at Coppet near Geneva.
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