Convicted jeweler goes to federal court in multi-million euro dispute
Published: Sunday, Feb 18th 2024, 16:00
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A suspected diamond thief convicted by the Vaudois judiciary is appealing to the Federal Supreme Court. The lawyers of the Jordanian jeweler have announced a corresponding appeal, as reported by the French-speaking Swiss newspaper "Le Matin Dimanche".
A lawyer for the man, who most recently lived in Qatar, confirmed to the Keystone-SDA news agency on Sunday that the judgment of the cantonal court of appeal had been appealed. The court had sentenced the jeweller to three years in prison at the beginning of December 2023. It found him guilty of stealing a pink diamond from a French multimillionaire living on Lake Geneva and replacing it with a worthless quartz.
In January 2012, the wealthy heiress noticed that the diamond adorning her ring, worth eight million francs, had been replaced by a worthless stone. Suspicion then fell on the jeweler, a close friend of hers, to whom she had just entrusted the inventory of her jewelry.
At first instance, the Nyon District Court acquitted the jeweller at the end of 2022 due to a lack of evidence. The public prosecutor's office and the plaintiff had lodged an appeal.
However, the cantonal court of appeal then convicted the jeweler. According to the court, the defendant was the only person in the plaintiff's circle who had the necessary knowledge to carry out the unusual exchange of the stones.
Lawyer: "shocking" turn of events
"We are deeply shocked by this unjust and excessively severe sentence," the lawyer told Keystone-SDA. The investigation had been conducted exclusively against her client. The trail of other potential suspects had not been sufficiently investigated.
"My client was completely acquitted at first instance and then, contrary to all expectations, was sentenced to an excessively high penalty on appeal, which was twice as high as the penalty demanded by the public prosecutor's office," said the lawyer. She had never experienced such a turn of events in her 20-year career.
©Keystone/SDA
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