Free subscriptions: acquittal for the bosses of Arosa Bergbahnen
Published: Wednesday, Oct 23rd 2024, 19:40
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The Chairman of the Board of Directors and the Director of the mountain railroads in Arosa were acquitted in court on Wednesday of multiple charges of granting benefits. For years, they had offered politicians and officials in Arosa and Chur ski passes either free of charge or at a reduced price.
Season tickets for the Arosa ski area and season passes for the Arosa/Lenzerheide winter sports arena were offered free of charge or at a reduced price to a group of around 60 people from 2014 to 2022.
No older cases were investigated due to the statute of limitations. In Arosa, members of the municipal government, parliament and citizens' council, as well as the district forester and municipal police officers, benefited from the offer with a price advantage of up to CHF 550.
Chur politicians also benefited
Because two thirds of the Arosa ski area is located on land belonging to the civic community of Chur, politicians and civil servants in the Grisons capital also benefited. The main beneficiaries were the members of the municipal government and the citizens' council. Who ultimately made use of the offer was not revealed at the regional court in Landquart on Wednesday.
The court acquitted the 69-year-old Chairman of the Board of Directors and the 60-year-old Director of Arosa Bergbahnen of guilt and punishment. The presiding judge said that the defendants had acted neither intentionally nor possibly intentionally, but negligently, which is not punishable. The multiple granting of advantages was not punishable until 1999. It was included in the Criminal Code in 2000.
Tradition adopted
The public prosecutor had demanded conditional fines and fines of CHF 10,000 each for both defendants. The defense lawyer demanded acquittals. In connection with the indictment, he spoke of a "perverse product of today's zeitgeist" and "do-gooderism".
Both the Chairman of the Board of Directors and the Director had emphasized that the practice of the mountain railroads had never been called into question since 1974. They had merely adopted and continued a tradition.
Cases of discounted or free season passes have also come to light in the canton of Valais. Among other things, politicians are said to have had the opportunity to obtain a ski pass for the entire cantonal territory worth CHF 1,570 for CHF 100.
The fact that members of the Federal Council received free ski passes from the Swiss Cableways Association also caused quite a stir. After this practice was publicly criticized, the national government renounced the gift.
©Keystone/SDA
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