Federal Act
on International Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters
(Mutual Assistance Act, IMAC)

¹ Un­less oth­er fed­er­al acts or in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments provide oth­er­wise, this Act shall gov­ern all pro­ced­ures of in­ter­na­tion­al co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters, and in par­tic­u­lar:⁴

a.

the ex­tra­di­tion of per­sons who are the sub­ject of crim­in­al pro­sec­u­tion or have been con­victed (Part Two);

b.

as­sist­ance aimed at sup­port­ing crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings abroad (Part Three);

c.

the trans­fer of pro­ceed­ings and pun­ish­ment of of­fences (Part Four);

d.

the ex­e­cu­tion of for­eign crim­in­al judg­ments (Part Five).

² …⁵

³ This Act ap­plies only to crim­in­al mat­ters in which re­course to the courts is per­mit­ted un­der the law of the re­quest­ing State.

^3bis Un­less oth­er le­gis­la­tion or in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments provide oth­er­wise, this Act ap­plies by ana­logy to pro­ceed­ings for co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters with in­ter­na­tion­al courts or oth­er inter- or supra­na­tion­al bod­ies with crim­in­al justice func­tions if the pro­ceed­ings re­late to:

a.

of­fences un­der the Twelfth Title^bis, Twelfth Title^ter or Twelfth Title^quater of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code⁶; or

b.

of­fences un­der oth­er pro­vi­sions of the crim­in­al law and the court or the body con­cerned is es­tab­lished by a res­ol­u­tion of the United Na­tions that is bind­ing on or sup­por­ted by Switzer­land.⁷

^3ter The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may also stip­u­late in an or­din­ance that this Act ap­plies by ana­logy to pro­ced­ures for co­oper­a­tion on crim­in­al mat­ters with oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al courts or oth­er inter- or supra­na­tion­al bod­ies with crim­in­al justice func­tions if:

a.

the court or body is es­tab­lished on the basis of leg­al pro­vi­sions that clearly define the powers of court or body in terms of crim­in­al law and crim­in­al pro­ced­ure;

b.

the pro­ced­ure be­fore the court or body guar­an­tees com­pli­ance with the prin­ciples of the rule of law; and

c.

co­oper­a­tion serves to safe­guard Switzer­land’s in­terests.⁸

⁴ This Act con­fers no right to co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters.⁹

In the ap­plic­a­tion of this Act, Swiss sov­er­eignty, se­cur­ity, pub­lic or­der or sim­il­ar es­sen­tial in­terests must be taken in­to ac­count.

A re­quest for co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters shall not be gran­ted if there are reas­ons to be­lieve that the for­eign pro­ceed­ings:

a.¹²

do not meet the pro­ced­ur­al re­quire­ments of the European Con­ven­tion for the Pro­tec­tion of Hu­man Rights and Fun­da­ment­al Freedoms of 4 Novem­ber 1950¹³, or the In­ter­na­tion­al Cov­en­ant on Civil and Polit­ic­al Rights of 16 Decem­ber 1966¹⁴;

b.¹⁵

are be­ing con­duc­ted so as to pro­sec­ute or pun­ish a per­son on ac­count of his polit­ic­al opin­ions, his be­long­ing to a cer­tain so­cial group, his race, re­li­gion, or na­tion­al­ity;

c.

could res­ult in ag­grav­at­ing the situ­ation of the de­fend­ant for any of the reas­ons men­tioned un­der let­ter b; or

d.

have oth­er ser­i­ous de­fects.

¹ A re­quest shall not be gran­ted if the sub­ject of the pro­ceed­ings is an act which, in the Swiss view, is of a pre­dom­in­antly polit­ic­al nature, con­sti­tutes a vi­ol­a­tion of the ob­lig­a­tion to per­form mil­it­ary or sim­il­ar ser­vice, or ap­pears to be dir­ec­ted against the na­tion­al se­cur­ity or mil­it­ary de­fence of the re­quest­ing State.

² The plea that an act is of a polit­ic­al nature shall not be taken in­to ac­count un­der any cir­cum­stances:

a.

in cases of gen­o­cide;

b.

in cases of crimes against hu­man­ity;

c.

in cases of war crimes; or

d.

if the act ap­pears par­tic­u­larly rep­re­hens­ible be­cause the of­fend­er, for the pur­pose of ex­tor­tion or duress, has en­dangered or threatened to en­danger the life or limb of per­sons, es­pe­cially by hi­jack­ing air­craft, us­ing means of mass ex­term­in­a­tion, caus­ing a cata­strophe or tak­ing host­ages.¹⁶

³ A re­quest shall not be gran­ted if the sub­ject of the pro­ceed­ings is an of­fence which ap­pears to be aimed at re­du­cing fisc­al du­ties or taxes or which vi­ol­ates reg­u­la­tions on cur­rency, trade or eco­nom­ic meas­ures. However, a re­quest may be gran­ted:

a.

for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance un­der Part Three of this Act if duty or tax fraud is the sub­ject of the pro­ceed­ings;

b.

un­der any part of this Act if ag­grav­ated duty or tax fraud as defined in Art­icle 14 para­graph 4 of the Fed­er­al Act of 22 March 1974¹⁷ on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law is the sub­ject of the pro­ceed­ings.¹⁸

A re­quest shall be re­jec­ted if the im­port­ance of the of­fence does not jus­ti­fy con­duct­ing pro­ceed­ings.

¹ A re­quest shall not be gran­ted if:²⁰

a.²¹

in Switzer­land or in the State where the of­fence was com­mit­ted, the court

1.

has ac­quit­ted the de­fend­ant or aban­doned the pro­ceed­ings for ma­ter­i­al reas­ons, or

2.

has per­man­ently or pro­vi­sion­ally dis­pensed with im­pos­ing a sen­tence;

b.²²

the sen­tence was ex­ecuted or can­not be ex­ecuted un­der the laws of the State where sen­tence was passed;

c.²³

its ex­e­cu­tion re­quires com­puls­ory meas­ures and the pro­sec­u­tion or ex­e­cu­tion of the sen­tence was ab­so­lutely time barred un­der Swiss law.

² Para­graph 1 let­ters a and b do not ap­ply if the re­quest­ing State claims that there are grounds for a re­view of the fi­nal sen­tence with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 410 of the Crim­in­al Pro­ced­ure Code of 5 Oc­to­ber 2007²⁴ (Crim­PC).²⁵

¹ If the act of which the de­fend­ant is ac­cused con­sti­tutes an of­fence un­der two or more pro­vi­sions of Swiss crim­in­al law, the re­quest may be gran­ted only in re­spect of those of­fences for which there are no reas­ons for in­ad­miss­ib­il­ity and if there is a guar­an­tee that the re­quest­ing State will re­spect the con­di­tions im­posed.

² Co­oper­a­tion shall not be per­mit­ted if the pro­ceed­ings con­cern an act that con­sti­tutes an of­fence un­der two or more pro­vi­sions of Swiss or for­eign crim­in­al law and if, with re­gard to one of these of­fences, which cov­ers the act in all its as­pects, a re­quest may not be gran­ted.

¹ No Swiss na­tion­al may, without his writ­ten con­sent, be ex­tra­dited or sur­rendered to a for­eign State for pro­sec­u­tion or for the ex­e­cu­tion of a sen­tence. Con­sent may be with­drawn up to the time when the sur­render is ordered.

² Para­graph 1 does not ap­ply to trans­it or re­turn of a Swiss na­tion­al who is tem­por­ar­ily sur­rendered by a third State to the Swiss au­thor­it­ies.

¹ As a rule, a re­quest shall be gran­ted only if the re­quest­ing State guar­an­tees re­cipro­city. The Fed­er­al Of­fice of Justice (FOJ)²⁶ shall ob­tain a guar­an­tee of re­cipro­city if this is con­sidered ne­ces­sary.

² Re­cipro­city is in par­tic­u­lar not re­quired for the ser­vice of doc­u­ments or if the ex­e­cu­tion of a re­quest:

a.

seems ad­vis­able due to the type of of­fence or to the ne­ces­sity of com­bat­ing cer­tain of­fences;

b.²⁷

is likely to im­prove the situ­ation of the de­fend­ant or the pro­spects of his so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion; or

c.

serves to cla­ri­fy an of­fence against a Swiss na­tion­al.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may, with­in the scope of this Act, provide oth­er States with a guar­an­tee of re­cipro­city.

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may con­clude bi­lat­er­al agree­ments with for­eign States re­gard­ing the trans­fer of sen­tenced per­sons provided those agree­ments re­spect the prin­ciples of the European Con­ven­tion of 21 March 1983²⁹ on the Trans­fer of Sen­tenced Per­sons.

In the ex­e­cu­tion of re­quests, pro­tec­tion of pri­vacy shall be gov­erned by the pro­vi­sions on the right of wit­nesses to re­fuse to testi­fy. Art­icles 246–248 Crim­PC³⁰ ap­ply by ana­logy to the search and to the pla­cing un­der seal of doc­u­ments.³¹

¹ A de­fend­ant un­der this Act is any per­son un­der sus­pi­cion, sub­ject to crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings or on whom a sen­tence has been im­posed.³³

² A sen­tence is any pen­alty or oth­er meas­ure.

¹ The FOJ shall run a per­son­al data, file and pro­cess man­age­ment sys­tem that may con­tain sens­it­ive per­son­al data ob­tained through forms of co­oper­a­tion gov­erned by this Act. This data may be pro­cessed in or­der to:

a.

identi­fy wheth­er data on a par­tic­u­lar per­son is be­ing pro­cessed;

b.

pro­cess data on pro­cesses;

c.

or­gan­ise work pro­ced­ures ra­tion­ally and ef­fi­ciently;

d.

con­duct a pro­cess check;

e.

com­pile stat­ist­ics.

² In or­der to com­ply with the pro­cessing pur­poses men­tioned in para­graph 1, the sys­tem shall con­tain:

a.

per­son­al de­tails of per­sons on whom data is be­ing pro­cessed;

b.

data ne­ces­sary for the loc­al­isa­tion and prop­er ad­min­is­tra­tion of the dossier;

c.

doc­u­ments on elec­tron­ic­ally stored pro­cesses and entries.

³ The Fed­er­al Of­fice of Po­lice and the State Sec­ret­ari­at for Mi­gra­tion³⁵ and the units of the Fed­er­al In­tel­li­gence Ser­vice re­spons­ible for the im­ple­ment­a­tion of the Fed­er­al Act of 21 March 1997³⁶ on Meas­ures to Safe­guard In­tern­al Se­cur­ity shall have on­line ac­cess to the data defined in para­graph 2 let­ter a.³⁷ If the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Po­lice car­ries out the tasks of the FOJ un­der this Act, it shall also have on­line ac­cess to the data defined in para­graph 2 let­ter b.

⁴ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify the de­tails, and in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

in the case of the re­cord­ing of data in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 let­ters a and b, data on the ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies in­volved in the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings and data on the of­fences giv­ing rise to the re­quest for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance;

b.

the peri­od of time that the data is kept and the archiv­ing of the data;

c.

the agen­cies of the FOJ that are au­thor­ised to pro­cess the data dir­ectly in the sys­tem and the data that in in­di­vidu­al cases may be dis­closed to oth­er au­thor­it­ies.

¹ Where mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings are pending, the per­son who is the ob­ject of a re­quest for in­ter­na­tion­al co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters shall be al­lowed ac­cess to the per­son­al data re­lated to them and the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion:

a.

the pur­pose of and leg­al basis for the data pro­cessing;

b.

the peri­od that the per­son­al data will be re­tained or, if this is not pos­sible, the cri­ter­ia for de­term­in­ing this peri­od;

c.

the re­cip­i­ents or the cat­egor­ies of re­cip­i­ents;

d.

the avail­able in­form­a­tion on the ori­gin of the per­son­al data;

e.

the in­form­a­tion that they re­quire to be able to as­sert their rights.

² The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may re­fuse to provide the in­form­a­tion, lim­it the in­form­a­tion provided or de­fer pro­vi­sion of the in­form­a­tion if there are grounds for do­ing so un­der Art­icle 80b para­graph 2 or if:

a.

it is ne­ces­sary be­cause of over­rid­ing in­terests of third parties;

b.

it is ne­ces­sary be­cause of over­rid­ing pub­lic in­terests, in par­tic­u­lar re­lat­ing to the in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity of Switzer­land; or

c.

an en­quiry, an in­vest­ig­a­tion, court pro­ceed­ings or in­ter­na­tion­al co­oper­a­tion pro­ceed­ings in crim­in­al mat­ters may be pre­ju­diced by provid­ing the per­son con­cerned with in­form­a­tion.

¹ Any per­son may re­quest in­form­a­tion on wheth­er Switzer­land has re­ceived a re­quest from a for­eign state to make an ar­rest for the pur­pose of ex­tra­di­tion. This right may be as­ser­ted at the FOJ. If the re­quest is made to a dif­fer­ent au­thor­ity, that au­thor­ity shall for­ward the re­quest im­me­di­ately to the FOJ.

² If a per­son re­quests in­form­a­tion on wheth­er the FOJ has re­ceived a re­quest to make an ar­rest for the pur­pose of ex­tra­di­tion, the FOJ shall no­ti­fy the per­son that no data about them has been un­law­fully pro­cessed and that the per­son can re­quest the Fed­er­al Data Pro­tec­tion and In­form­a­tion Com­mis­sion­er (the FD­PIC) to en­quire as to wheth­er any data on them has been law­fully pro­cessed.³⁹

³ The FD­PIC shall con­duct the en­quir­ies; he shall no­ti­fy the per­son con­cerned either that no data about them has been un­law­fully pro­cessed or that he has opened an in­vest­ig­a­tion un­der Art­icle 49 of the Data Pro­tec­tion Act of 25 Septem­ber 2020⁴⁰ in the case of er­rors in the pro­cessing of per­son­al data.⁴¹

⁴ If the FD­PIC iden­ti­fies er­rors in the data pro­cessing, he shall or­der the FOJ to rec­ti­fy the same.⁴²

⁵ The no­ti­fic­a­tions un­der para­graphs 2 and 3 shall al­ways be worded in the same way and shall not men­tion the grounds.

⁶ The no­ti­fic­a­tion un­der para­graph 3 may not be con­tested.

⁷ In derog­a­tion from para­graph 2, the FOJ is en­titled to provide the per­son con­cerned with the re­ques­ted in­form­a­tion if the re­quest­ing state gives its ad­vance con­sent.

¹ The per­son who is the ob­ject of a re­quest for in­ter­na­tion­al co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters may re­quest that the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity cor­rect or de­lete the per­son­al data re­lat­ing to them that is be­ing pro­cessed in con­tra­ven­tion of this Act.

² In­stead of de­let­ing the per­son­al data, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall re­strict the pro­cessing if:

a.

the data sub­ject dis­putes the ac­cur­acy of the per­son­al data but it can­not be es­tab­lished wheth­er the data is cor­rect or in­cor­rect;

b.

over­rid­ing in­terests, in par­tic­u­lar those set out in Art­icle 80b para­graph 2, so re­quire; or

c.

de­le­tion may pre­ju­dice pro­ceed­ings on in­ter­na­tion­al co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters or for­eign pro­ceed­ings giv­ing rise to the re­quest for co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters.

³ The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall im­me­di­ately no­ti­fy the au­thor­ity that has trans­mit­ted, made avail­able or dis­closed the per­son­al data about the meas­ures taken in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 or 2.

⁴ The rel­ev­ant for­eign au­thor­ity is re­spons­ible for check­ing the ac­cur­acy of per­son­al data that has been ob­tained as evid­ence or per­son­al data re­lat­ing to crim­in­al of­fences giv­ing rise to the re­quest for in­ter­na­tion­al co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters.

¹ The data pro­tec­tion rules that ap­ply to the dis­clos­ure of per­son­al data to the com­pet­ent au­thor­it­ies of States that are linked with Switzer­land through one of the Schen­gen as­so­ci­ation agree­ments (the Schen­gen States) must not be stricter than the rules that ap­ply to the dis­clos­ure of per­son­al data to Swiss law en­force­ment au­thor­it­ies.

² Spe­cif­ic le­gis­la­tion that provides for stricter data pro­tec­tion rules for the dis­clos­ure of per­son­al data to the com­pet­ent for­eign au­thor­it­ies does not ap­ply to dis­clos­ure to the com­pet­ent au­thor­it­ies of the Schen­gen States.

¹ Per­son­al data may not be dis­closed to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity of a State that is not linked with Switzer­land through one of the Schen­gen as­so­ci­ation agree­ments (a third coun­try) or to an in­ter­na­tion­al body if, as a res­ult, the pri­vacy of the data sub­ject would be ser­i­ously jeop­ard­ised, in par­tic­u­lar be­cause of the lack of ad­equate pro­tec­tion.

² Ad­equate pro­tec­tion is guar­an­teed by:

a.

the le­gis­la­tion of the third coun­try, provided the European Uni­on has con­firmed this in a de­cision;

b.

an in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment;

c.

spe­cif­ic guar­an­tees.

³ In derog­a­tion from para­graph 1, per­son­al data may be dis­closed to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity of a third coun­try or to an in­ter­na­tion­al body if dis­clos­ure is ne­ces­sary in the case in ques­tion:

a.

to pro­tect the life or phys­ic­al in­teg­rity of the data sub­ject or a third party;

b.

to pre­vent an im­min­ent and ser­i­ous threat to the pub­lic se­cur­ity of a Schen­gen State or of a third coun­try;

c.

to pre­vent, de­tect or pro­sec­ute a crim­in­al of­fence or to ex­ecute a crim­in­al judg­ment, un­less over­rid­ing le­git­im­ate in­terests of the data sub­ject pre­clude dis­clos­ure;

d.

to ex­er­cise or en­force leg­al rights against an au­thor­ity com­pet­ent to pre­vent, de­tect or pro­sec­ute a crim­in­al of­fence or to ex­ecute a crim­in­al judg­ment, un­less over­rid­ing le­git­im­ate in­terests of the data sub­ject pre­clude dis­clos­ure.

¹ Per­son­al data that are trans­mit­ted or made avail­able by a Schen­gen State may be dis­closed to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity of a third coun­try or to an in­ter­na­tion­al body if:

a.

dis­clos­ure is re­quired to pre­vent, de­tect or pro­sec­ute a crim­in­al of­fence or to ex­ecute a crim­in­al judg­ment;

b.

the Schen­gen State that trans­mit­ted or made avail­able the per­son­al data has giv­en pri­or con­sent to dis­clos­ure; and

c.

the re­quire­ments of Art­icle 11f are met.

² In derog­a­tion from para­graph 1 let­ter b, per­son­al data may be dis­closed in an in­di­vidu­al case if:

a.

the pri­or con­sent of the Schen­gen State can­not be ob­tained in time; and

b.

dis­clos­ure is ne­ces­sary to pre­vent an im­min­ent and ser­i­ous threat to the pub­lic se­cur­ity of a Schen­gen State or of a third coun­try or to pro­tect the es­sen­tial in­terests of a Schen­gen State.

³ The Schen­gen State shall be no­ti­fied im­me­di­ately of any dis­clos­ure un­der para­graph 2.

¹ The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall no­ti­fy the re­cip­i­ent about the re­li­ab­il­ity of the per­son­al data dis­closed and of the ex­tent to which they are up to date.

² It shall also dis­close any ad­di­tion­al in­form­a­tion to the re­cip­i­ent that may as far as pos­sible be used to dis­tin­guish:

a.

between the vari­ous cat­egor­ies of data sub­jects;

b.

between per­son­al data based on facts and per­son­al data based on per­son­al as­sess­ments.

³ The ob­lig­a­tion to no­ti­fy the re­cip­i­ent does not ap­ply if the in­form­a­tion men­tioned in para­graphs 1 and 2 is evid­ent from the per­son­al data them­selves or from the cir­cum­stances.

¹ Un­less this Act spe­cifies oth­er­wise, the fed­er­al ad­min­is­trat­ive au­thor­it­ies shall ap­ply, by ana­logy, the Fed­er­al Act of 20 Decem­ber 1968⁴³ on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure, and the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies their own pro­ced­ur­al rules. Pro­ced­ur­al acts are gov­erned by the pro­ced­ur­al law in crim­in­al mat­ters.

² The can­ton­al and fed­er­al pro­vi­sions on the sus­pen­sion of time lim­its do not ap­ply.⁴⁴

¹ In pro­ceed­ings un­der this Act, the fol­low­ing shall be con­sidered to have ef­fect in Switzer­land:

a.

the sus­pen­sion of a lim­it­a­tion peri­od un­der the law of the re­quest­ing State;

b.

the fil­ing of a crim­in­al com­plaint with a for­eign au­thor­ity with­in the time lim­it provided for if this is so re­quired un­der Swiss law.

² If a crim­in­al com­plaint is re­quired only un­der Swiss law, no sen­tence may be im­posed or ex­ecuted in Switzer­land if the vic­tim makes ob­jec­tions.

Art­icle 69 of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code⁴⁶ ap­plies when tak­ing ac­count of the peri­od spent on re­mand or in de­ten­tion abroad due to pro­ceed­ings un­der this Act.

¹ Art­icles 429 and 431 Crim­PC⁴⁷ ap­ply by ana­logy in pro­ceed­ings that have been con­duc­ted against the de­fend­ant un­der this Act in Switzer­land or at the in­stig­a­tion of a Swiss au­thor­ity abroad.⁴⁸

² The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall pay the com­pens­a­tion if a fed­er­al au­thor­ity makes or ex­ecutes a re­quest. It may re­quire re­im­burse­ment from the can­ton that caused the re­quest to be made.

³ The com­pens­a­tion may be re­duced or re­fused if the de­fend­ant has pro­voked the in­vest­ig­a­tion or the de­ten­tion through his fault, or has, without reas­on, ob­struc­ted or delayed the pro­ceed­ings.⁴⁹

⁴ Com­pens­a­tion for de­ten­tion pending ex­tra­di­tion served in Switzer­land may also be re­duced or re­fused if the re­quest­ing State:

a.

with­draws the re­quest for search and ar­rest with a view to ex­tra­di­tion; or

b.

does not present the re­quest for ex­tra­di­tion with the ne­ces­sary en­clos­ures with­in the dead­line set.⁵⁰

⁵ The like­li­hood of the in­jured party be­ing able to ob­tain dam­ages in the for­eign State must be taken in­to ac­count when the de­cision is made to re­duce or re­fuse the com­pens­a­tion.⁵¹

¹ The can­tons shall par­ti­cip­ate in the con­duct of ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings. Un­less fed­er­al law provides oth­er­wise, they are re­quired to ex­ecute the re­quests for oth­er forms of mu­tu­al as­sist­ance and the trans­fer of pro­ceed­ings and to ex­ecute crim­in­al judg­ments. The can­tons shall be sub­ject to the su­per­vi­sion of the Con­fed­er­a­tion provided this Act ap­plies.

² …⁵²

¹ The Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Justice and Po­lice (the De­part­ment) shall de­cide on cases un­der Art­icle 1 let­ter a.⁵³ The de­cision of the De­part­ment may be re­ques­ted with­in 30 days of re­ceiv­ing writ­ten no­ti­fic­a­tion of the fi­nal rul­ing.⁵⁴

² The FOJ shall re­ceive the re­quests from abroad and file Swiss re­quests. It shall handle ex­tra­di­tion re­quests and ar­range for re­quests for oth­er as­sist­ance, trans­fer of pro­ceed­ings and ex­e­cu­tion of crim­in­al judg­ments to be ex­amined by the ap­pro­pri­ate can­ton­al or fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies if their ex­e­cu­tion is not ob­vi­ously in­ad­miss­ible.

³ It shall de­cide:

a.

wheth­er to re­quire a guar­an­tee of re­cipro­city (Art. 8 para. 1);

b.

on the ap­pro­pri­ate pro­ced­ure (Art. 19);

c.

on the ad­miss­ib­il­ity of Swiss re­quests (Art. 30, para. 1).

⁴ It may trans­fer the con­duct of pro­ceed­ings wholly or partly to the fed­er­al au­thor­ity which would be com­pet­ent to pro­sec­ute the of­fence if it had been com­mit­ted in Switzer­land.

⁵ It may also de­cide on the ad­miss­ib­il­ity of as­sist­ance and al­low its ex­e­cu­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 79 let­ter a.⁵⁵

¹ The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall ex­ecute re­quests promptly. It shall de­cide without delay.

² It shall on re­quest provide the FOJ with in­form­a­tion on the status of the pro­ceed­ings, the reas­ons for any delay and the meas­ures be­ing con­sidered. If the delay is not jus­ti­fied, the FOJ may take the mat­ter up with the ap­pro­pri­ate su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity.

³ When the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity, without reas­on, re­fuses to or delays in is­su­ing a rul­ing, its con­duct shall be re­garded as equi­val­ent to a neg­at­ive de­cision sub­ject to ap­peal.

¹ At the ex­press re­quest of an­oth­er State, pro­vi­sion­al meas­ures may be taken by the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity to pre­serve the ex­ist­ing situ­ation, to safe­guard threatened leg­al in­terests or to pro­tect jeop­ard­ised evid­ence un­less the pro­ceed­ings un­der this Act clearly ap­pear to be in­ad­miss­ible or in­ap­pro­pri­ate.

² If any delay would jeop­ard­ise the pro­ceed­ings and if there is suf­fi­cient in­form­a­tion to de­term­ine wheth­er all the con­di­tions are met, the FOJ may like­wise or­der pro­vi­sion­al meas­ures as soon as a re­quest is an­nounced. Such meas­ures shall be re­voked if the for­eign State does not make the re­quest with­in the dead­line set.

³ Ap­peals filed against rul­ings based on this Art­icle do not have sus­pens­ive ef­fect.

¹ In ex­tra­di­tion cases, the FOJ may, at the ex­press re­quest of an­oth­er State or­der the sur­veil­lance of postal and tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions traffic in or­der to es­tab­lish the where­abouts of the de­fend­ant.

² In oth­er mu­tu­al as­sist­ance cases, the fol­low­ing au­thor­it­ies may or­der the sur­veil­lance of postal and tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions traffic:

a.

the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Switzer­land or of the Can­ton­al Pub­lic Pro­sec­utor;

b.

the FOJ, if it is ex­ecut­ing the re­quest for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance it­self.

³ The sur­veil­lance or­der must be sub­mit­ted to the fol­low­ing au­thor­it­ies for ap­prov­al:

a.

by the fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies: the fed­er­al com­puls­ory meas­ures court;

b.

by the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies: the can­ton­al com­puls­ory meas­ures court.

⁴ The re­quire­ments for sur­veil­lance and the pro­ced­ure shall oth­er­wise be gov­erned by Art­icles 269–279 Crim­PC⁵⁹ and the Fed­er­al Act of 6 Oc­to­ber 2000⁶⁰ on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic.

¹ The fed­er­al or can­ton­al au­thor­ity deal­ing with a re­quest for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance may or­der the trans­mis­sion of elec­tron­ic com­mu­nic­a­tions traffic data to an­oth­er State be­fore con­clu­sion of the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings if:

a.

pro­vi­sion­al meas­ures in­dic­ate that the com­mu­nic­a­tion that is the sub­ject of the re­quest ori­gin­ated abroad; or

b.

the data was ac­quired by the ex­ecut­ing au­thor­ity based on an or­der for au­thor­ised real-time sur­veil­lance (Art. 269–281 Crim­PC⁶²).

² The data may not be used in evid­ence be­fore the rul­ing on grant­ing and the ex­tent of mu­tu­al as­sist­ance is leg­ally bind­ing.

³ No­tice of the rul­ing un­der para­graph 1 and any or­der or au­thor­isa­tion for sur­veil­lance must be giv­en to the FOJ im­me­di­ately.

If the de­fend­ant is abroad and if, ac­cord­ing to the laws of the State to which the re­quest is to be made, there is a choice between dif­fer­ent pro­ced­ures, pref­er­ence shall be giv­en to the pro­ced­ure which ap­pears to en­sure the bet­ter so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion.

¹ At the re­quest of the FOJ, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may tem­por­ar­ily sus­pend crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings or the ex­e­cu­tion of a sen­tence against a de­fend­ant abroad for an­oth­er of­fence if:

a.

the sen­tence im­posed in Switzer­land is not of great im­port­ance in com­par­is­on to the one likely to be im­posed abroad; or

b.

ex­e­cu­tion of the sen­tence in Switzer­land does not seem ap­pro­pri­ate.

² On con­clu­sion of the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings abroad, the Swiss au­thor­ity shall de­cide wheth­er or not to re­sume the sus­pen­ded pro­ceed­ings or the ex­e­cu­tion of the pen­alty.

¹ In the in­terest of pro­ceed­ings car­ried out in an­oth­er State and per­mit­ted un­der this Act, the FOJ may per­mit trans­it through Swiss ter­rit­ory and ap­prove the meas­ures re­quired there­for on sub­mis­sion of a re­quest by the State con­cerned or a third State without hear­ing the per­son con­cerned. There is no right of ap­peal against the de­cision and an­cil­lary meas­ures. They shall be no­ti­fied only to the re­quest­ing State.

² No ap­prov­al shall be re­quired if the de­tained per­son is to be trans­por­ted by air­craft over Swiss ter­rit­ory without a stop­over land­ing. In the event of an un­sched­uled stop­over land­ing, the de­tained per­son may be kept in cus­tody only if:

a.

the re­quire­ments for his ar­rest un­der Art­icle 44 are met; or

b.

the State ar­ran­ging for the trans­port to be made has pre­vi­ously in­formed the FOJ by in­dic­at­ing the reas­on for sur­render and the of­fence which is the basis for it.

³ Only the FOJ may in­ter­rupt the trans­it to pro­sec­ute an of­fence or to ex­ecute a crim­in­al judg­ment in Switzer­land.

¹ The de­fend­ant may ap­point a leg­al ad­viser. If he chooses not to do so or is not in a po­s­i­tion to do so, a leg­al ad­viser shall be of­fi­cially ap­poin­ted if re­quired to safe­guard the in­terests of the de­fend­ant.

² Oth­er per­sons who are af­fected by the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ures or who, as in­jured parties, are present at en­quir­ies, may, if the safe­guard­ing of their in­terests so re­quires, be as­sisted by a leg­al ad­viser while mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ures are be­ing car­ried out and, provided the ob­ject of the in­vest­ig­a­tion is not pre­ju­diced, be rep­res­en­ted by him.

³ Per­sons who are the sub­ject of for­eign crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings may chal­lenge rul­ings only if they are per­son­ally and dir­ectly af­fected by a mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ure and if they have an in­terest worthy of leg­al pro­tec­tion in the meas­ure be­ing re­voked or changed.⁶⁴

⁴ Ap­peals filed against a de­cision made in ap­plic­a­tion of this Act shall not have a sus­pens­ive ef­fect. This rule does not ap­ply to ap­peals dir­ec­ted against a de­cision:

a.

grant­ing ex­tra­di­tion; or

b.

au­thor­ising the trans­mis­sion abroad of clas­si­fied in­form­a­tion or the hand­ing over of ob­jects or as­sets.⁶⁵

Rul­ings and de­cisions is­sued by fed­er­al and can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies must give no­tice of the pos­sible ap­pel­late rem­ed­ies, the ap­pel­late au­thor­ity and the dead­line for fil­ing an ap­peal.

¹ First in­stance rul­ings by can­ton­al and fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies are sub­ject to an ap­peal dir­ectly to the Ap­peals Cham­ber of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court un­less this Act stip­u­lates oth­er­wise.⁷⁰

² An ap­peal against a Swiss re­quest to an­oth­er State is only ad­miss­ible if that State is re­ques­ted to as­sume re­spons­ib­il­ity for the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings or the ex­e­cu­tion of a crim­in­al judg­ment. In this case, only de­fend­ants who are ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land are en­titled to ap­peal.⁷¹

^2bisAn ap­peal against a Swiss re­quest for trans­fer­ring re­spons­ib­il­ity for the ex­e­cu­tion of a crim­in­al judg­ment in con­nec­tion with a trans­fer un­der Art­icle 101 para­graph 2 is ad­miss­ible.⁷²

³ The FOJ may ap­peal against rul­ings by can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies as well as against de­cisions by the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court. The can­ton­al au­thor­ity is en­titled to ap­peal against the de­cision of the FOJ not to make a re­quest.⁷³

⁴ An ap­peal may also be filed against the in­ad­miss­ible or ob­vi­ously im­prop­er ap­plic­a­tion of for­eign law.

⁵ …⁷⁴

⁶ The Ap­peals Cham­ber of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court is not bound by the ap­plic­a­tions made by the parties.⁷⁵

Rul­ings made by the De­part­ment un­der Art­icle 17 para­graph 1 shall be sub­ject to ap­peal to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil. …⁷⁷

¹ Art­icles 27 to 31 ap­ply to all pro­ced­ures un­der this Act sub­ject to the spe­cial rules of pro­ced­ure provided for in the oth­er parts of this Act.⁷⁸

² For­eign re­quests shall be ad­dressed dir­ectly to the FOJ.

³ Re­quests which are ad­dressed to an in­ap­pro­pri­ate au­thor­ity shall be for­war­ded ex of­fi­cio. The re­quest­ing au­thor­ity shall be duly no­ti­fied.

⁴ Re­quests in con­nec­tion with an ar­rest shall be dealt with without delay.

⁵ The non-ac­cept­ance or re­fus­al of a re­quest must be sub­stan­ti­ated.

¹ Re­quests shall be made in writ­ing.

² The fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion must be provided in a re­quest:

a.

the of­fice is­su­ing the re­quest and, if ap­plic­able, the au­thor­ity hav­ing crim­in­al jur­is­dic­tion;

b.

the sub­ject mat­ter of and the reas­on for the re­quest;

c.

the leg­al term for the of­fence;

d.

de­tails that are as ex­act and com­plete as pos­sible on the per­son who is the sub­ject of the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.

³ To per­mit the leg­al as­sess­ment of the of­fence, the fol­low­ing shall be ad­ded:

a.

a sum­mary of the rel­ev­ant al­leg­a­tions, ex­cept in the case of re­quests for ser­vice;

b.⁷⁹

the word­ing of the reg­u­la­tions ap­plic­able at the place where the of­fence was com­mit­ted, ex­cept for re­quests for as­sist­ance in ac­cord­ance with Part Three of this Act.

⁴ For­eign of­fi­cial re­cords need not be leg­al­ised.

⁵ For­eign re­quests and their en­clos­ures shall be sub­mit­ted in Ger­man, French or Itali­an or be ac­com­pan­ied by a trans­la­tion in­to one of these lan­guages. Trans­la­tions must be of­fi­cially cer­ti­fied.

⁶ If a re­quest does not meet the form­al re­quire­ments, its cor­rec­tion or com­ple­tion may be de­man­ded; the or­der­ing of pro­vi­sion­al meas­ures is not af­fected thereby.

¹ The FOJ may re­ceive re­quests dir­ectly from the min­istry of justice of the re­quest­ing State.

² When pro­vi­sion­al meas­ures must be taken or in ur­gent cases, the in­ter­ven­tion of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­in­al Po­lice or­gan­isa­tion (ICPO In­ter­pol) may be en­lis­ted or a copy of the writ­ten re­quest may be sent dir­ectly to the au­thor­ity com­pet­ent for its ex­e­cu­tion.

¹ Swiss au­thor­it­ies may not ad­dress to an­oth­er State re­quests which they them­selves could not grant un­der this Act.

² The FOJ is com­pet­ent for re­quests for ex­tra­di­tion, trans­fer of pro­ceed­ings or ex­e­cu­tion of crim­in­al judg­ments; it shall take ac­tion at the re­quest of the re­quest­ing Swiss au­thor­ity.⁸⁰

³ Con­di­tions which the re­ques­ted State at­taches to the ex­e­cu­tion of the re­quest must be ob­served by the Swiss au­thor­it­ies.

⁴ The FOJ may de­cline to make a re­quest if the im­port­ance of the of­fence does not jus­ti­fy the pro­ceed­ings.

⁵ The FOJ shall in­form the re­quest­ing Swiss au­thor­ity im­me­di­ately if the re­ques­ted State re­quires a court or­der for a re­ques­ted mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ure.⁸¹

¹ As a rule, for­eign re­quests shall be ex­ecuted free of charge.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the con­di­tions un­der which the re­quest­ing State may be charged full or par­tial costs.

³ The costs of a Swiss re­quest that are re­im­bursed to an­oth­er State shall be charged to the pro­ceed­ings that caused the re­quest to be made.

⁴ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the shar­ing of costs between the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons.

For­eign na­tion­als may be sur­rendered to an­oth­er State for pro­sec­u­tion or en­force­ment of a sen­tence in­volving depriva­tion of liberty for acts which come un­der its crim­in­al jur­is­dic­tion if that State re­quests ex­tra­di­tion or if it ac­cepts the Swiss re­quest to pro­sec­ute the of­fence or en­force the judg­ment.

¹ Chil­dren and ju­ven­iles as defined in the Swiss Crim­in­al Code⁸² whose ex­tra­di­tion is re­ques­ted shall, if pos­sible, be re­pat­ri­ated by the ju­ven­ile au­thor­it­ies. The same ap­plies to per­sons between the ages of 18 and 20 if ex­tra­di­tion could en­danger their men­tal de­vel­op­ment or so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion.

² Re­pat­ri­ation shall have the ef­fects of an ex­tra­di­tion.

¹ Ex­tra­di­tion is per­mit­ted if, ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ments sup­port­ing the re­quest, the of­fence:

a.

is pun­ish­able by depriva­tion of liberty for a max­im­um peri­od of at least one year or a more severe sen­tence both un­der the law of Switzer­land and un­der the law of the re­quest­ing State and

b.

is not sub­ject to Swiss jur­is­dic­tion.

² In de­term­in­ing wheth­er an act is an of­fence un­der Swiss law, the fol­low­ing are not con­sidered:

a.

its spe­cif­ic de­grees of guilt and con­di­tions for crim­in­al li­ab­il­ity;

b.

the con­di­tions re­lat­ing to the per­son­al and time-re­lated ap­plic­a­tion of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code⁸⁴ and the Swiss Mil­it­ary Crim­in­al Code of 13 June 1927⁸⁵ with re­gard to the crim­in­al pro­vi­sions on gen­o­cide, crimes against hu­man­ity and war crimes.⁸⁶

¹ As an ex­cep­tion, the de­fend­ant may be ex­tra­dited for an of­fence which comes un­der Swiss jur­is­dic­tion if spe­cial cir­cum­stances, es­pe­cially the pos­sib­il­ity of bet­ter so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion, jus­ti­fy it.

² If one of two or more of­fences is ex­tra­dit­able (Art. 35 para. 1), ex­tra­di­tion may be gran­ted for all of­fences.

¹ Ex­tra­di­tion may be denied if Switzer­land can as­sume re­spons­ib­il­ity for the pro­sec­u­tion of the of­fence or the ex­e­cu­tion of the for­eign crim­in­al judg­ment and if this ap­pears to be ap­pro­pri­ate with re­gard to the so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion of the de­fend­ant.

² Ex­tra­di­tion shall be denied if the re­quest is based on a ver­dict is­sued in the ab­sence of the de­fend­ant and if the min­im­um rights of the de­fence to which a de­fend­ant is re­cog­nised to be en­titled were not re­spec­ted in the pro­ceed­ings pre­ced­ing the ver­dict; this rule does not ap­ply if the re­quest­ing State gives suf­fi­cient as­sur­ances to guar­an­tee the de­fend­ant the right to new court pro­ceed­ings where the rights of the de­fence are re­spec­ted.⁸⁷

³ Ex­tra­di­tion shall also be denied if the re­quest­ing State fails to guar­an­tee that the de­fend­ant will not be sen­tenced to death, that an already pro­nounced death pen­alty will not be car­ried out, or that he will not be sub­jec­ted to treat­ment that will im­pair his phys­ic­al in­teg­rity.⁸⁸

¹ The de­fend­ant may be ex­tra­dited only on con­di­tion that the re­quest­ing State:

a.

neither pro­sec­utes nor sen­tences nor re-ex­tra­dites him to a third State for any of­fence com­mit­ted pri­or to his ex­tra­di­tion and for which ex­tra­di­tion was not gran­ted;

b.⁸⁹

does not de­prive him of his liberty on any oth­er ground that ex­is­ted be­fore his ex­tra­di­tion;

c.⁹⁰

does not bring him be­fore an ex­traordin­ary court; and moreover

d.

sends the Swiss au­thor­it­ies, at their re­quest, an of­fi­cially cer­ti­fied copy of the de­cision which con­cludes the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.

² The con­di­tions of para­graph 1 let­ters a and b no longer ap­ply if:

a.

the de­fend­ant or ex­tra­dited ex­pressly waives them; or

b.

the per­son ex­tra­dited:

1.

in spite of be­ing ad­vised of the con­sequences has not left the ter­rit­ory of the re­quest­ing State with­in forty-five days of his con­di­tion­al or fi­nal re­lease des­pite hav­ing the op­por­tun­ity to do so, or if, after leav­ing that ter­rit­ory, he has re­turned, or

2.

has been re­turned by a third State.⁹¹

If the ex­tra­dited per­son is charged with oth­er of­fences, the State to which he was ex­tra­dited may be per­mit­ted, on mak­ing a new re­quest, to pro­sec­ute these of­fences as well.

¹ If two or more States re­quest ex­tra­di­tion for the same of­fence, ex­tra­di­tion shall be gran­ted as a rule to the State where the of­fence was com­mit­ted or prin­cip­ally per­pet­rated.

² If ex­tra­di­tion is re­ques­ted by more than one State for dif­fer­ent of­fences, the de­cision shall be made hav­ing due re­gard to all cir­cum­stances, es­pe­cially the ser­i­ous­ness of the of­fences, the place of com­mis­sion, the chro­no­lo­gic­al or­der in which the re­quests were re­ceived, the na­tion­al­ity of the de­fend­ant, the bet­ter pro­spect of so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion and the pos­sib­il­ity of ex­tra­di­tion to an­oth­er State.

In ad­di­tion to the doc­u­ments spe­cified in Art­icle 28 para­graph 3, the fol­low­ing shall be en­closed with the re­quest: the ori­gin­al or an of­fi­cially au­then­tic­ated copy of an en­force­able judg­ment, of an ar­rest war­rant or of any oth­er doc­u­ment is­sued in ac­cord­ance with the reg­u­la­tions of the re­quest­ing State and hav­ing the same ef­fect.

Re­quests for tra­cing and ar­rest with a view to ex­tra­di­tion shall con­tain, in ad­di­tion to the items of in­form­a­tion spe­cified in Art­icle 28 para­graphs 2 and 3 let­ter a, ref­er­ences to the fol­low­ing:

a.

the ex­ist­ence of a val­id ar­rest war­rant, its date of is­sue and the name of the is­su­ing au­thor­ity;

b.

the in­ten­tion of the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity to make a re­quest for ex­tra­di­tion.

The FOJ shall de­cide wheth­er and un­der what con­di­tions it will con­sider the re­quest.

For­eign na­tion­als may be ar­res­ted with a view to ex­tra­di­tion on the basis of a re­quest by an In­ter­pol Na­tion­al Cent­ral Bur­eau or the Min­istry of Justice of an­oth­er State or on the basis of an in­ter­na­tion­al alert in a po­lice search sys­tem.⁹² Art­icle 52 para­graphs 1 and 2 ap­ply by ana­logy.

¹ At the time of ar­rest, ob­jects and as­sets which can serve as evid­ence in for­eign crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings or which ori­gin­ate from an of­fence shall be seized.

² The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies may, if ne­ces­sary, or­der that the ar­res­ted per­son or the rooms be searched.

¹ Ar­rest and seizure shall be re­por­ted to the FOJ.

² They shall con­tin­ue un­til a de­cision con­cern­ing the de­ten­tion await­ing ex­tra­di­tion is is­sued but at the latest un­til the third work­day after the ar­rest.

¹ The FOJ shall is­sue an ar­rest war­rant with a view to ex­tra­di­tion. It may de­cline to do so, es­pe­cially if the de­fend­ant:

a.

will prob­ably not elude ex­tra­di­tion and will not en­danger the crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion; or

b.

can prove without delay that he was not at the place of the of­fence when it was com­mit­ted.

² If the de­fend­ant is un­fit to re­main in de­ten­tion or if there are oth­er val­id reas­ons, the FOJ may or­der meas­ures oth­er than de­ten­tion to en­sure his pres­ence.

³ At the same time the FOJ shall rule on which ob­jects and as­sets will re­main seized or must be seized.

¹ Rul­ings un­der Art­icle 47 shall con­tain:

a.

in­form­a­tion, provided by the for­eign au­thor­ity, con­cern­ing the iden­tity of the de­fend­ant and the of­fence al­leged against this per­son;

b.

the name of the of­fice which made the re­quest;

c.

the con­firm­a­tion that ex­tra­di­tion will be re­ques­ted;

d.

the no­tice re­gard­ing the right of ap­peal un­der para­graph 2 and the right to ap­point a leg­al ad­viser.

² An ap­peal against these rul­ings may be filed with the Ap­peals Cham­ber of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court with­in ten days of the serving of the writ­ten ar­rest war­rant with a view to ex­tra­di­tion. Art­icles 379–397 Crim­PC⁹³ ap­ply by ana­logy to the ap­peal pro­ced­ure.⁹⁴

¹ The ex­e­cu­tion of rul­ings un­der Art­icle 47 is a mat­ter for the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies.

² The ar­rest war­rant with a view to ex­tra­di­tion may not be ex­ecuted while the de­fend­ant is held in de­ten­tion await­ing tri­al or is serving a sen­tence.⁹⁵

³ The de­fend­ant may neither be re­leased nor de­por­ted from Switzer­land without the con­sent of the FOJ.

¹ The FOJ shall or­der the re­lease of the per­son con­cerned from de­ten­tion 18 days after ar­rest if the re­quest for ex­tra­di­tion and the doc­u­ments sup­port­ing it have not been re­ceived.⁹⁶ This peri­od may be ex­ten­ded for spe­cial cause by up to 40 days.

² If the de­fend­ant is already de­tained, the peri­od shall start when he is de­tained with a view to ex­tra­di­tion.

³ By way of ex­cep­tion, the per­son con­cerned may be re­leased from de­ten­tion with a view to ex­tra­di­tion at any stage of the pro­ceed­ings if this is ap­pro­pri­ate in the cir­cum­stances. The de­fend­ant may lodge a pe­ti­tion for re­lease at any time.

⁴ In ad­di­tion, Art­icles 238–240 Crim­PC⁹⁷ ap­ply by ana­logy to re­lease from de­ten­tion.⁹⁸

¹ If the re­quest and its en­clos­ures are re­ceived in time and if ex­tra­di­tion is not ob­vi­ously in­ad­miss­ible, de­ten­tion shall con­tin­ue throughout the pro­ceed­ings without spe­cial rul­ing.

² If the de­fend­ant has been re­leased, de­ten­tion with a view to ex­tra­di­tion may be ordered again.

¹ The re­quest and the doc­u­ments sup­port­ing it shall be sub­mit­ted to the de­fend­ant and to his leg­al ad­viser. When form­ally present­ing the de­fend­ant with the ar­rest war­rant with a view to ex­tra­di­tion, the can­ton­al au­thor­ity shall as­cer­tain if the de­fend­ant is identic­al with the per­son men­tioned in the re­quest. It shall ex­plain to him the con­di­tions of ex­tra­di­tion and of sim­pli­fied ex­tra­di­tion and ad­vise him of the right to ap­peal, to ap­point a leg­al ad­viser or to have a leg­al ad­viser of­fi­cially ap­poin­ted.⁹⁹

² The de­fend­ant shall be ques­tioned briefly about his per­son­al cir­cum­stances, and es­pe­cially his na­tion­al­ity and re­la­tion­ship with the re­quest­ing State, and asked if and for what reas­ons he raises ob­jec­tions to the ar­rest war­rant or his ex­tra­di­tion. His leg­al ad­viser may as­sist in this hear­ing.

³ If the ex­tra­dited per­son is to be pro­sec­uted for oth­er of­fences or re-ex­tra­dited to a third State, the FOJ shall ar­range for him to be ques­tioned on the re­cord in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 by a ju­di­cial au­thor­ity of the re­quest­ing State.

¹ If the de­fend­ant claims to be able to prove that he was not at the scene of the of­fence when it was com­mit­ted, the FOJ shall make the ne­ces­sary in­vest­ig­a­tions.

² Ex­tra­di­tion shall be denied in clear cases. In oth­er cases, the ex­culp­at­ory evid­ence shall be sub­mit­ted to the re­quest­ing State which shall be asked to de­clare with­in a short time wheth­er it wishes to con­tin­ue with its re­quest.

¹ If the de­fend­ant places on the re­cord be­fore a ju­di­cial au­thor­ity that he waives the re­quire­ment of ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings, the FOJ shall or­der his sur­render un­less there are spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tions pro­hib­it­ing it.

² This waiver may be re­voked provided the FOJ has not ordered the sur­render.

³ Sim­pli­fied ex­tra­di­tion shall have the ef­fect of ex­tra­di­tion and is sub­ject to the same con­di­tions. The re­quest­ing State shall be giv­en no­tice there­of.

¹ After set­ting the de­fend­ant and the third party ob­ject­ing to the hand­ing over of ob­jects an ap­pro­pri­ate dead­line for stat­ing their po­s­i­tion, the FOJ shall rule on the ex­tra­di­tion of the de­fend­ant and the hand­ing over of ob­jects and as­sets seized.¹⁰¹

² If the de­fend­ant claims that he is be­ing charged with a polit­ic­al of­fence or if the in­vest­ig­a­tion re­veals ser­i­ous grounds to be­lieve that the of­fence is of a polit­ic­al nature, the Ap­peals Cham­ber of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court shall de­cide the case.¹⁰² The FOJ shall send the file to this Court, to­geth­er with its pro­pos­al. The de­fend­ant shall be giv­en the op­por­tun­ity to state his po­s­i­tion.

³ The pro­ced­ure for an ap­peal un­der Art­icle 25 ap­plies by ana­logy.¹⁰³

If the de­fend­ant has ap­plied for asylum un­der the Asylum Act of 26 June 1998¹⁰⁵, the FOJ and the ap­pel­late au­thor­ity shall con­sult the files from the asylum pro­ceed­ings when de­cid­ing on ex­tra­di­tion.

¹ Ex­tra­di­tion may be ex­ecuted if the de­fend­ant:

a.

ex­pressly re­quests his own im­me­di­ate ex­tra­di­tion; or

b.

does not give no­tice with­in five days of the is­sue of the rul­ing that he will file an ap­peal.

² If ex­tra­di­tion is re­fused, the FOJ shall re­lease the per­son con­cerned from de­ten­tion with a view to ex­tra­di­tion.

¹ The FOJ shall is­sue the ne­ces­sary rul­ings in agree­ment with the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies.

² It shall no­ti­fy the re­quest­ing State of the de­cision as well as of the date and place of ex­tra­di­tion.

¹ Ex­tra­di­tion may be post­poned provided the per­son to be ex­tra­dited is be­ing pro­sec­uted in Switzer­land for oth­er of­fences or if he has to serve a sen­tence in­volving depriva­tion of liberty.

² However, pro­vi­sion­al sur­render of the de­fend­ant may be gran­ted if:

a.

this will not be pre­ju­di­cial to the Swiss crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings; and

b.

the re­quest­ing State has guar­an­teed to keep the de­fend­ant in cus­tody dur­ing his stay in that State and will re­turn him re­gard­less of his na­tion­al­ity.

¹ If the con­di­tions set for the ex­tra­di­tion are met, ob­jects and as­sets shall also be handed over which:

a.

can serve as evid­ence; or

b.

de­rive from the of­fence.

² If an au­thor­ity, or a third party with rights ac­quired in good faith, or the vic­tim who lives in Switzer­land as­serts rights over the ob­jects or as­sets which can serve as evid­ence, their hand­ing over shall be sub­ject to the con­di­tion that the re­quest­ing State guar­an­tees their re­turn without costs after the con­clu­sion of its pro­ceed­ings.

³ The ob­jects or as­sets which de­rive from the of­fence in­clude:

a.

in­stru­ments which served to com­mit the of­fence;

b.

products or profits of the of­fence, their re­place­ment value and any un­law­ful ad­vant­age;

c.

gifts and oth­er be­ne­fits which served to in­stig­ate the of­fence or re­com­pense the per­pet­rat­or for the of­fence, as well as their re­place­ment value.

⁴ The ob­jects or as­sets which de­rive from the of­fence may be re­tained in Switzer­land if:

a.

the vic­tim is ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land and they have to be re­turned to him;

b.

an au­thor­ity as­serts rights over them; or

c.

a per­son not in­volved in the of­fence and whose claims are not guar­an­teed by the re­quest­ing State shows prob­able cause that he has ac­quired rights over the ob­jects and as­sets in good faith in Switzer­land, or, if he is ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land, in a for­eign coun­try.

⁵ Ob­jects or as­sets men­tioned in the first para­graph and which are re­quired for pending crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings in Switzer­land may also be re­tained in Switzer­land.

⁶ If a per­son en­titled to the ob­jects or as­sets makes a claim un­der para­graph 4, the ob­jects or as­sets shall not be handed over un­til the leg­al po­s­i­tion has been cla­ri­fied. Ob­jects or as­sets in dis­pute shall be re­turned to the per­son en­titled only if:

a.

the re­quest­ing State gives its con­sent;

b.

in the case of para­graph 4 let­ter b, the au­thor­ity gives its con­sent; or

c.

the jus­ti­fic­a­tion of the claim is re­cog­nised by a Swiss ju­di­cial au­thor­ity.

⁷ The hand­ing over of ob­jects and as­sets is not de­pend­ent on the ex­e­cu­tion of the ex­tra­di­tion of the de­fend­ant.

⁸ Ob­jects and as­sets in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 let­ter b to which Switzer­land is en­titled ac­cord­ing to an as­set-shar­ing agree­ment based on the Fed­er­al Act of 19 March 2004¹⁰⁷ on the Di­vi­sion of For­feited As­sets are not handed over.¹⁰⁸

¹ If ob­jects or as­sets are handed over and their re­turn is waived, the cus­toms li­en or any oth­er real li­ab­il­ity un­der Swiss cus­toms or tax law shall not be claimed if the own­er who suffered loss as a res­ult of the of­fence does not per­son­ally owe the duty or tax.

² The waiver of such a fisc­al li­en may be made de­pend­ent on re­cipro­city.

If the re­quest­ing State does not take the ne­ces­sary steps to take over the per­son to be ex­tra­dited with­in ten days of no­ti­fic­a­tion of the ex­e­cu­tion or­der, he shall be re­leased. This time lim­it may be ex­ten­ded up to 30 days in re­sponse to a jus­ti­fied re­quest from the re­quest­ing State.

¹ In the event of ex­tra­di­tion to a for­eign coun­try, the Swiss Con­fed­er­a­tion shall pay the costs of de­ten­tion and trans­port­a­tion provided that it is cus­tom­ary in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions for the re­ques­ted State to pay such costs.

² The per­son­al prop­erty of the de­fend­ant may be used to cov­er the costs provided it does not have to be handed over to the re­quest­ing State.

¹ Mu­tu­al as­sist­ance with­in the mean­ing of Part Three of this Act shall com­prise the trans­mis­sion of in­form­a­tion, as well as pro­ced­ur­al acts and oth­er of­fi­cial acts per­mit­ted un­der Swiss law provided these acts ap­pear to be ne­ces­sary for pro­ceed­ings car­ried out abroad in crim­in­al mat­ters or serve to re­trieve the pro­ceeds of the of­fence.¹⁰⁹

² Mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ures shall in­clude in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

the ser­vice of doc­u­ments;

b.

ob­tain­ing evid­ence, and in par­tic­u­lar search­ing per­sons and rooms, seizure, or­ders to pro­duce, ex­pert opin­ions, con­duct­ing hear­ings and con­front­a­tions of per­sons;

c.

pro­duc­tion of doc­u­ments and pa­pers;

d.

hand­ing over of ob­jects or as­sets with a view to for­feit­ure or for resti­tu­tion to the en­titled per­son.¹¹⁰

³ The fol­low­ing shall, in par­tic­u­lar, be con­sidered pro­ceed­ings car­ried out in crim­in­al mat­ters:

a.

pro­sec­u­tion of crim­in­al of­fences as provided for in Art­icle 1 para­graph 3;

b.

ad­min­is­trat­ive meas­ures against an of­fend­er;

c.

ex­e­cu­tion of crim­in­al judg­ments and par­dons;

d.

com­pens­a­tion for un­jus­ti­fied de­ten­tion.¹¹¹

⁴ As­sist­ance may also be gran­ted to the European Court of Hu­man Rights and to the European Com­mis­sion on Hu­man Rights in pro­ceed­ings re­gard­ing the safe­guard­ing of hu­man rights and fun­da­ment­al freedoms.

⁵ As­sist­ance which will ex­on­er­ate a de­fend­ant is per­mit­ted even if the re­quest is in­ad­miss­ible un­der Art­icles 3–5.

¹ Meas­ures un­der Art­icle 63 which re­quire the use of pro­ced­ur­al com­pul­sion may be ordered only if the de­scrip­tion of the cir­cum­stances of the case in­dic­ates that the of­fence be­ing pro­sec­uted abroad con­tains the ob­ject­ive ele­ments of an of­fence un­der Swiss law. The meas­ures must be car­ried out in ac­cord­ance with Swiss law.

² If the of­fence pro­sec­uted abroad is not an of­fence in Switzer­land, meas­ures un­der Art­icle 63 which re­quire the use of pro­ced­ur­al com­pul­sion shall be al­lowed for:

a.

the ex­on­er­a­tion of a de­fend­ant;

b.¹¹²

the pro­sec­u­tion of of­fences in­volving sexu­al acts with minors.¹¹³

¹ At the ex­press re­quest of the for­eign State:

a.

the state­ments of wit­nesses or ex­perts shall be af­firmed in the form pre­scribed by the laws of the re­quest­ing State, even if the ap­plic­able Swiss law does not provide such a form;

b.

forms ne­ces­sary to ob­tain oth­er evid­ence that is ad­miss­ible in court may be taken in­to con­sid­er­a­tion.

² Forms for ob­tain­ing and af­firm­ing evid­ence ac­cord­ing to para­graph 1 must be com­pat­ible with Swiss law, and no es­sen­tial pre­ju­dice may res­ult there­from to the per­sons in­volved.

³ A per­son may also re­fuse to testi­fy provided the law of the re­quest­ing State so provides or if the fact of testi­fy­ing may cause crim­in­al or dis­cip­lin­ary sanc­tions to be im­posed un­der the laws of that State or of the State where the ex­amined per­son lives.

¹ When the re­quest­ing State, based on its law, so re­quests, per­sons who are par­ti­cip­at­ing in pro­ceed­ings abroad may be au­thor­ised to at­tend mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings and to have ac­cess to the files.

² Their pres­ence may also be per­mit­ted if it sub­stan­tially helps to fa­cil­it­ate the ex­e­cu­tion of the re­quest or the for­eign crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.

³ Their pres­ence may not lead to their ob­tain­ing ac­cess to in­form­a­tion with­in the scope of secrecy be­fore the ap­pro­pri­ate au­thor­ity has de­cided wheth­er, and to what ex­tent, as­sist­ance may be gran­ted.

¹ As­sist­ance may be denied if the de­fend­ant resides in Switzer­land and pro­ceed­ings are already pending here re­gard­ing the of­fence to which the re­quest relates.

² However, as­sist­ance may be gran­ted if the pro­ceed­ings car­ried out abroad are not dir­ec­ted solely against the de­fend­ant who is resid­ing in Switzer­land, or if the ex­e­cu­tion of the re­quest serves to ex­on­er­ate him.¹¹⁷

¹ In­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments ob­tained through mu­tu­al as­sist­ance may not be used for in­vest­ig­at­ive pur­poses or as evid­ence in the re­quest­ing State in any pro­ceed­ings re­lat­ing to an of­fence for which as­sist­ance is not ad­miss­ible.

² Any fur­ther use shall be sub­ject to ap­prov­al by the FOJ. This ap­prov­al is not ne­ces­sary if:

a.

the act to which the re­quest relates con­sti­tutes an­oth­er of­fence for which mu­tu­al as­sist­ance would be gran­ted; or

b.

the for­eign crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings are dir­ec­ted against oth­er per­sons who have par­ti­cip­ated in com­mit­ting the of­fence.

³ Pres­ence at the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings and ac­cess to the files shall be per­mit­ted un­der the same con­di­tions (Art. 65a para.1).

¹ An au­thor­ity pro­sec­ut­ing of­fences may, without be­ing re­ques­ted to do so, trans­mit to a for­eign au­thor­ity pro­sec­ut­ing of­fences in­form­a­tion or evid­ence that it has gathered in the course of its own in­vest­ig­a­tion, when it de­term­ines that this trans­mis­sion may:

a.

per­mit the open­ing of crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings; or

b.

fa­cil­it­ate an on­go­ing crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion.

² The trans­mis­sion as defined in para­graph 1 does not have any ef­fect on the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings pending in Switzer­land.

³ The trans­mis­sion of evid­ence to a State with which Switzer­land does not have an in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment shall be sub­ject to au­thor­isa­tion by the FOJ.

⁴ Para­graphs 1 and 2 do not ap­ply to evid­ence that is sub­ject to the rules on secrecy.

⁵ In­form­a­tion that is sub­ject to the rules on secrecy may be trans­mit­ted if it may en­able the for­eign State to present a re­quest for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance.

⁶ A re­cord shall be made of each spon­tan­eous trans­mis­sion.

¹ Where a Swiss au­thor­ity is re­ques­ted to serve doc­u­ments, ser­vice may be ef­fected by per­son­al or postal de­liv­ery to the re­cip­i­ent.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may per­mit the dir­ect ser­vice of doc­u­ments from abroad to the re­cip­i­ent in Switzer­land. It shall de­term­ine the con­di­tions for such ser­vice.

³ Ser­vice is pre­sumed to be ef­fected if ac­cept­ance or re­fus­al to ac­cept has been con­firmed in writ­ing.

¹ There is no ob­lig­a­tion to com­ply for any per­son who ac­cepts a sum­mons to ap­pear be­fore a for­eign au­thor­ity.

² Sum­monses con­tain­ing threats of com­pul­sion shall not be served.

³ Ser­vice of a sum­mons may be made sub­ject to the con­di­tion that the re­cip­i­ent is guar­an­teed safe con­duct for an ap­pro­pri­ate peri­od of time and will not be pre­ven­ted from freely leav­ing the ter­rit­ory of the re­quest­ing State. If the re­cip­i­ent so re­quires, the au­thor­ity ef­fect­ing ser­vice shall ask the re­quest­ing State to give a writ­ten as­sur­ance there­of be­fore proof of ser­vice is fur­nished.

¹ Per­sons held in cus­tody in Switzer­land may be trans­ferred to a for­eign au­thor­ity for the pur­pose of in­vest­ig­a­tions if they are guar­an­teed safe con­duct and if it is guar­an­teed that they will be kept in cus­tody and re­turned to Switzer­land on re­quest.

² Per­sons who are not in­dicted abroad and Swiss cit­izens may be trans­ferred only with their writ­ten con­sent. This is not ne­ces­sary if the trans­fer is re­quired for the ex­e­cu­tion of a Swiss re­quest or for con­front­a­tion with oth­er per­sons abroad.

¹ If a de­tained per­son is sur­rendered to the Swiss au­thor­it­ies in the course of an act of as­sist­ance, the war­rant for his ar­rest is­sued abroad shall also be val­id in Switzer­land for the peri­od of his stay in Switzer­land.

² Dur­ing trans­it the de­fend­ant shall be kept in cus­tody by vir­tue of the or­der for trans­it giv­en by the FOJ.

³ In those cases the de­tained per­son may be re­leased only with the agree­ment of the com­pet­ent for­eign au­thor­ity.

¹ A per­son ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent abroad and who ap­pears in Switzer­land in a crim­in­al case pur­su­ant to a sum­mons may neither be pro­sec­uted nor re­stric­ted in his per­son­al free­dom for reas­ons that oc­curred pri­or to his entry in­to Switzer­land.

² The de­fend­ant shall en­joy no safe con­duct re­gard­ing the of­fences spe­cified in the sum­mons.

³ The safe con­duct provided for in para­graph 1 shall cease when this per­son leaves Switzer­land but at the latest three days after he is per­mit­ted to leave by the sum­mon­ing au­thor­it­ies.

¹ On re­quest, ob­jects, doc­u­ments or as­sets seized as evid­ence as well as re­cords and de­cisions shall be made avail­able to the com­pet­ent for­eign au­thor­ity after con­clu­sion of the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings (Art. 80d).

² If a third party with rights ac­quired in good faith, an au­thor­ity, or the vic­tim who is ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land claim that they have rights over the ob­jects, doc­u­ments or as­sets un­der para­graph 1, their hand­ing over shall be sub­ject to the con­di­tion that the re­quest­ing State gives the guar­an­tee to re­turn them free of charge after the con­clu­sion of the pro­ceed­ings.

³ Re­turn may be delayed if the ob­jects, doc­u­ments or as­sets are ne­ces­sary for crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings pending in Switzer­land.

⁴ Art­icle 60 ap­plies to fisc­al li­ens.

¹ On re­quest, ob­jects or as­sets sub­ject to a pre­cau­tion­ary seizure may be handed over to the com­pet­ent for­eign au­thor­ity after con­clu­sion of the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings (Art. 80d) for the pur­pose of for­feit­ure or re­turn to the per­son en­titled.

² The ob­jects or as­sets re­ferred to in para­graph 1 in­clude:

a.

in­stru­ments which were used to com­mit the of­fence;

b.

products of or profits from the of­fence, their re­place­ment value and any un­law­ful ad­vant­age;

c.

gifts and oth­er con­tri­bu­tions which served to in­stig­ate the of­fence or re­com­pense the of­fend­er, as well as their re­place­ment value.

³ The hand­ing over may take place at any stage of the for­eign pro­ceed­ings, nor­mally based on a fi­nal and ex­ecut­able de­cision from the re­quest­ing State.

⁴ However, the ob­jects or as­sets may be re­tained in Switzer­land if:

a.

the vic­tim is ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land and they have to be re­turned to him;

b.

an au­thor­ity as­serts rights over them;

c.

a per­son not in­volved in the of­fence and whose claims are not guar­an­teed by the re­quest­ing State shows prob­able cause that he has ac­quired rights over these ob­jects and as­sets in good faith in Switzer­land, or if he is ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land, in a for­eign coun­try; or

d.

the ob­jects or as­sets are ne­ces­sary for pending crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings in Switzer­land or ap­pear, be­cause of their nature, to be sub­ject to for­feit­ure in Switzer­land.

⁵ Whenev­er a per­son claims to have rights over the ob­jects or as­sets un­der para­graph 4, its hand­ing over to the re­quest­ing State shall be post­poned un­til the leg­al situ­ation is clear. The ob­jects or as­sets claimed may be handed over to the per­son en­titled if:

a.

the re­quest­ing State agrees;

b.

in the case of para­graph 4 let­ter b, the au­thor­ity gives its con­sent; or

c.

the claim has been re­cog­nised by a Swiss court.

⁶ Art­icle 60 ap­plies to fisc­al li­ens.

⁷Ob­jects and as­sets to which Switzer­land is en­titled ac­cord­ing to an as­set shar­ing agree­ment based on the Fed­er­al Act of 19 March 2004¹²³ on the Di­vi­sion of For­feited As­sets shall not be handed over in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1.¹²⁴

¹ Re­quests for as­sist­ance may be sub­mit­ted by au­thor­it­ies that are com­pet­ent to in­vest­ig­ate of­fences or make de­cisions in oth­er pro­ceed­ings to which this Act is ap­plic­able.

² Swiss au­thor­it­ies may also ac­cept re­quests for the ex­e­cu­tion of pro­ced­ur­al acts from the parties au­thor­ised to make them if those acts are in­cum­bent upon the parties un­der the laws of the re­quest­ing State.

³ The FOJ shall make re­quests for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance that is needed out­side crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.¹²⁵

¹ The com­mis­sion­ers of po­lice of the Con­fed­er­a­tion and of the can­tons may make a re­quest un­der Art­icle 63 on their own be­half and may grant such re­quests em­an­at­ing from for­eign au­thor­it­ies.

² The fol­low­ing re­quests are ex­cluded:

a.

re­quests which ne­ces­sit­ate the use of pro­ced­ur­al com­pul­sion;

b.

re­quests for in­form­a­tion or meas­ures in pro­ceed­ings re­gard­ing ex­tra­di­tion, trans­fer of pro­ceed­ings and ex­e­cu­tion of crim­in­al judg­ments;

c.

re­quests for the hand­ing over of crim­in­al de­cisions or crim­in­al files.

In ad­di­tion to the in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments re­quired by Art­icle 28, the fol­low­ing shall be spe­cified in or en­closed with a re­quest:

a.

in re­quests for ser­vice: the name and ad­dress of the re­cip­i­ent and his po­s­i­tion in the pro­ceed­ings as well as the type of doc­u­ment to be served;

b.

with re­quests for trans­it: one of the doc­u­ments lis­ted in Art­icle 41;

c.

with re­quests for search of per­sons or rooms, for seizure or hand­ing over of ob­jects: con­firm­a­tion that these meas­ures are per­mit­ted in the re­quest­ing State.

¹ For­eign re­quests shall be ad­dressed to the ap­pro­pri­ate can­ton­al au­thor­ity through the in­ter­me­di­ary of the FOJ.

² Re­quests for ex­tracts from the Re­gister of Con­vic­tions or for de­term­in­ing the iden­tity of a per­son shall be ad­dressed to the FOJ¹²⁸.

¹ The FOJ shall re­ceive for­eign re­quests un­less pro­vi­sion is made for dir­ect trans­mis­sion to the com­pet­ent can­ton­al or fed­er­al ex­ecut­ing au­thor­ity.

² The FOJ shall sum­mar­ily ex­am­ine wheth­er the re­quest meets the form­al re­quire­ments of this Act and shall for­ward it to the ap­pro­pri­ate ex­ecut­ing au­thor­ity un­less the re­quest clearly ap­pears to be in­ad­miss­ible.

³ If ne­ces­sary, the FOJ shall re­turn the re­quest to the re­quest­ing State for im­prove­ment or com­ple­tion.

⁴ Re­ceipt and trans­mis­sion of the re­quest to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity are not sub­ject to ap­peal.

⁵ The pro­ced­ur­al pro­vi­sions of Art­icle 18 are re­served.

¹ If the ex­e­cu­tion of the re­quest ne­ces­sit­ates in­vest­ig­a­tions in more than one can­ton or if it also con­cerns a fed­er­al au­thor­ity, the FOJ may en­trust a single au­thor­ity with its ex­e­cu­tion. Art­icles 44–47, 52 and 53 Crim­PC¹³⁰ ap­ply by ana­logy.¹³¹

² The FOJ may del­eg­ate all or part of the ex­e­cu­tion of a re­quest to the fed­er­al au­thor­ity which would be com­pet­ent if the of­fence had been com­mit­ted in Switzer­land.

³ The FOJ may also en­trust the ex­e­cu­tion of sup­ple­ment­ary re­quests to the au­thor­ity to which ex­e­cu­tion was del­eg­ated.

⁴ The des­ig­na­tion of the can­ton­al or fed­er­al au­thor­ity re­spons­ible shall not be sub­ject to ap­peal.

The FOJ may de­cide wheth­er mu­tu­al as­sist­ance is per­mit­ted and del­eg­ate its ex­e­cu­tion to a can­ton­al au­thor­ity or it­self de­cide on the ex­e­cu­tion if:

a.

the ex­e­cu­tion of the re­quest ne­ces­sit­ates in­vest­ig­a­tions in more than one can­ton;

b.

the com­pet­ent can­ton­al au­thor­ity is un­able to make a de­cision with­in the ap­pro­pri­ate time; or

c.

the cases are com­plex or par­tic­u­larly im­port­ant.

¹ The re­quest shall be sub­ject to pre­lim­in­ary ex­am­in­a­tion by the can­ton­al or fed­er­al au­thor­ity re­spons­ible for its ex­e­cu­tion.

² If the re­quest can­not be gran­ted, the ex­ecut­ing au­thor­ity shall re­turn it to the re­quest­ing au­thor­ity by the same chan­nel through which it was re­ceived.

¹ The ex­ecut­ing au­thor­ity shall is­sue a sum­mary rul­ing on wheth­er to con­sider the case and shall or­der the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ures per­mit­ted.

² It shall ex­ecute the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ures in ac­cord­ance with its own pro­ced­ur­al law.

¹ The per­sons en­titled may par­ti­cip­ate in the pro­ceed­ings and have ac­cess to the files provided this is ne­ces­sary to safe­guard their in­terests.

² The rights provided for in para­graph 1 may be lim­ited only:

a.

in the in­terest of the for­eign pro­ceed­ings;

b.

for the pro­tec­tion of an im­port­ant leg­al in­terest if the re­quest­ing State so re­quests;

c.

be­cause of the nature or ur­gency of the meas­ures to be taken;

d.

for the pro­tec­tion of im­port­ant private in­terests;

e.

in the in­terest of Swiss pro­ceed­ings.

³ Ac­cess to the files or par­ti­cip­a­tion in the pro­ceed­ings may only be denied in the case of files or pro­ced­ur­al meas­ures for reas­ons of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity.

¹ The per­sons en­titled, and in par­tic­u­lar the hold­ers of doc­u­ments, in­form­a­tion or as­sets may con­sent to hand­ing them over without form­al­ity at any time pri­or to the con­clu­sion of the pro­ceed­ings. Con­sent is ir­re­voc­able.

² If all the per­sons en­titled give their con­sent, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall make a writ­ten re­cord there­of and con­clude the pro­ceed­ings.

³ If only some of the doc­u­ments, in­form­a­tion or as­sets re­quired are handed over, the or­din­ary pro­ceed­ings shall be fol­lowed for the re­main­ing part.

When the ex­ecut­ing au­thor­ity de­term­ines that the re­quest is com­pletely or par­tially ex­ecuted, it shall is­sue a rul­ing giv­ing reas­ons on wheth­er mu­tu­al as­sist­ance is gran­ted and to what ex­tent.

¹ The com­pet­ent can­ton­al or fed­er­al au­thor­ity may by way of ex­cep­tion or­der the early trans­mis­sion of in­form­a­tion or evid­ence gathered be­fore the fi­nal rul­ing is is­sued:

a.

if for­eign in­vest­ig­a­tions in cases re­lat­ing to or­gan­ised crime or ter­ror­ism would be made dis­pro­por­tion­ately dif­fi­cult without this mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ure, in par­tic­u­lar where there is a risk of col­lu­sion or in or­der to safe­guard the con­fid­en­ti­al­ity of the pro­ceed­ings; or

b.

in or­der to avert a ser­i­ous and im­me­di­ate danger, and in par­tic­u­lar the com­mis­sion of a ter­ror­ist of­fence.

² The in­form­a­tion or evid­ence con­cerned must be con­nec­ted with the pre­ven­tion or the pro­sec­u­tion of an ex­tra­dit­able crim­in­al of­fence.

³ Early trans­mis­sion may be ordered with or without a re­quest be­ing re­ceived. If it is ordered in the ab­sence of a re­quest, the com­pet­ent can­ton­al or fed­er­al au­thor­ity shall trans­mit only the non-per­son­al data re­quired to as­sess the po­s­i­tion, sub­ject to re­ceiv­ing the un­der­tak­ings spe­cified in para­graph 4.

⁴ Early trans­mis­sion is con­di­tion­al on the re­quest­ing au­thor­ity provid­ing an un­der­tak­ing in ad­vance that:

a.

the in­form­a­tion or evid­ence will be used solely to as­sist with in­vest­ig­a­tions, and un­der no cir­cum­stances for the pur­pose of re­quest­ing, jus­ti­fy­ing or is­su­ing a fi­nal de­cision;

b.

it will in­form the com­pet­ent can­ton­al or fed­er­al au­thor­ity as soon as the for­eign pro­ceed­ings per­mit that the per­son con­cerned may be no­ti­fied of the early trans­mis­sion un­der Art­icle 80m so that he or she can re­spond be­fore the fi­nal rul­ing is is­sued;

c.

it will re­move the in­form­a­tion or evid­ence ob­tained through early trans­mis­sion from the files for the for­eign pro­ceed­ings if mu­tu­al as­sist­ance is re­fused.

⁵ No­ti­fic­a­tion of the per­son con­cerned shall be de­ferred.

⁶ No­tice of the in­ter­im rul­ing in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 shall be giv­en to the FOJ without delay and be­fore the early trans­mis­sion. It is not in it­self con­test­able.

¹ The can­ton­al or fed­er­al mu­tu­al as­sist­ance au­thor­ity may for a spe­cif­ic pur­pose and in con­sulta­tion with the com­pet­ent for­eign ju­di­cial au­thor­ity ap­point a joint in­vest­ig­a­tion team (JIT) to con­duct or sup­port the con­duct of a crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion in a state par­ti­cip­at­ing in the JIT.

² A JIT may in par­tic­u­lar be ap­poin­ted in a dif­fi­cult or com­plex crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion that in­volves one or more oth­er states and which re­quires con­sid­er­able re­sources as well as co­ordin­ated and con­cer­ted ac­tion.

³ It may only be ap­poin­ted if a re­quest for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance has been sub­mit­ted by a ju­di­cial au­thor­ity.

⁴ The JIT must be ap­poin­ted for a lim­ited dur­a­tion. The ap­point­ment may be ex­ten­ded as re­quired.

⁵ The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall des­ig­nate the per­sons re­spons­ible and the mem­bers of the JIT for its state. The JIT may call on the ser­vices of ex­perts and aux­il­i­ary per­son­nel as re­quired.

⁶ No­tice of the act of ap­point­ment shall be giv­en to the FOJ in writ­ing.

The JIT’s activ­it­ies are gov­erned by the law of the state in which the in­vest­ig­a­tion is con­duc­ted.

The rep­res­ent­at­ive of the crim­in­al or mu­tu­al as­sist­ance au­thor­ity in whose state an in­vest­ig­at­ive meas­ure is car­ried out is re­spons­ible for that in­vest­ig­at­ive meas­ure.

The for­eign per­son re­spons­ible and the for­eign mem­bers of the JIT, as well as the for­eign ex­perts and aux­il­i­ary per­son­nel un­der Art­icle 80d^ter para­graph 5 are deemed equi­val­ent to the Swiss per­son re­spons­ible and the Swiss mem­bers of the JIT dur­ing an op­er­a­tion on Swiss na­tion­al ter­rit­ory in re­la­tion to any of­fences com­mit­ted against them or that they them­selves com­mit. They are also deemed equi­val­ent to them in re­la­tion to any in­jury, loss or dam­age that they cause dur­ing their op­er­a­tion.

¹ The per­sons re­spons­ible and mem­bers of the JIT shall have ac­cess to:

a.

doc­u­ments and in­form­a­tion that are re­lated to the rel­ev­ant crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion;

b.

evid­ence that has been gathered in the course of the rel­ev­ant crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion.

² They shall be denied ac­cess to doc­u­ments, in­form­a­tion and evid­ence if a de­cision to that ef­fect has been taken by a per­son re­spons­ible for the JIT or by a crim­in­al or mu­tu­al as­sist­ance au­thor­ity. The fore­go­ing also ap­plies if the doc­u­ments, in­form­a­tion or evid­ence were ob­tained be­fore the JIT was ap­poin­ted.

³ The ex­perts and aux­il­i­ary per­son­nel un­der Art­icle 80d^ter para­graph 5 shall have ac­cess only to doc­u­ments, in­form­a­tion and evid­ence that are re­quired for them to ful­fil the tasks as­signed to them.

The early trans­mis­sion of doc­u­ments, in­form­a­tion and evid­ence that are to loc­ated on Swiss sov­er­eign ter­rit­ory is gov­erned by Art­icle 80d^bis.

¹ The con­fid­en­ti­al­ity of the in­form­a­tion, in­clud­ing the con­fid­en­ti­al­ity of the in­vest­ig­a­tion, must be pre­served.

² The pro­tec­tion of per­son­al data is gov­erned by the law of the state in which the in­vest­ig­at­ive meas­ure is car­ried out.

If the bod­ies nor­mally com­pet­ent to do so in the ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies con­cerned in­tend to is­sue a press re­lease, the Swiss crim­in­al or mu­tu­al as­sist­ance au­thor­ity and its for­eign part­ner au­thor­ity shall dis­cuss the con­tent be­fore­hand.

¹ The costs of the in­vest­ig­at­ive activ­it­ies shall be borne by the state in which the act con­cerned is car­ried out.

² The costs re­lated to time spent in the oth­er coun­try, travel and ac­com­mod­a­tion for the per­sons re­spons­ible and the oth­er mem­bers of the JIT shall be borne by their own coun­try.

³ The rooms and the tech­nic­al re­sources re­quired to con­duct the in­vest­ig­at­ive activ­it­ies, such as of­fice space, com­mu­nic­a­tion me­dia or spe­cial equip­ment, shall be provided by the state in which the activ­ity con­cerned is car­ried out.

¹ The act of ap­point­ment must in­clude the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion:

a.

the pur­pose of the JIT;

b.

the names of the Swiss and the for­eign crim­in­al or mu­tu­al as­sist­ance au­thor­it­ies;

c.

the names of the per­sons re­spons­ible for each state par­ti­cip­at­ing in the JIT and the names of the oth­er mem­bers of the JIT and their func­tions;

d.

the crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion, in­clud­ing the fac­tu­al cir­cum­stances, that is the sub­ject mat­ter of the crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion, and the of­fences un­der in­vest­ig­a­tion;

e.

the states on whose ter­rit­ory the JIT will con­duct in­vest­ig­a­tions in ac­cord­ance with the rel­ev­ant na­tion­al law;

f.

the dur­a­tion for which the JIT is ap­poin­ted, with the date on which this peri­od ends;

g.

the names of any ex­perts and aux­il­i­ary per­son­nel who are not mem­bers of the JIT, in par­tic­u­lar of those who come from oth­er ser­vices or ad­min­is­trat­ive units in the par­ti­cip­at­ing states, as well as the names of any ex­perts and aux­il­i­ary per­son­nel from Euro­just and Euro­pol;

h.

the pro­ced­ure for deal­ings with the me­dia;

i.

the ar­range­ments for bear­ing the costs of the crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion and in­vest­ig­at­ive activ­it­ies;

j.

the ar­range­ments for bear­ing the costs of time spent in the oth­er coun­try, travel and ac­com­mod­a­tion for the per­sons re­spons­ible, the oth­er mem­bers of the JIT and the ex­perts and aux­il­i­ary per­son­nel;

k.

the tech­nic­al re­sources re­quired to con­duct the op­er­a­tions.

² The act of ap­point­ment may be amended if the in­vest­ig­a­tions so re­quire. In par­tic­u­lar, fur­ther mem­bers may be ad­ded to the JIT or the time lim­it may be ex­ten­ded.

¹ The rul­ing of the ex­ecut­ing can­ton­al or fed­er­al au­thor­ity on the con­clu­sion of the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings to­geth­er with the pre­ced­ing in­ter­im rul­ings shall be sub­ject to ap­peal to the Ap­peals Cham­ber of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court.

² In­ter­im rul­ings pre­ced­ing the fi­nal rul­ing may be ap­pealed against sep­ar­ately provided that they cause im­me­di­ate and ir­re­par­able pre­ju­dice through:

a.

the seizure of as­sets or valu­ables; or

b.

the pres­ence of per­sons in­volved in the for­eign pro­ceed­ings.

³ Art­icle 80l para­graphs 2 and 3 ap­plies by ana­logy.

The fol­low­ing shall be en­titled to ap­peal:

a.

the FOJ;

b.

any per­son who is per­son­ally and dir­ectly af­fected by a mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ure and has a le­git­im­ate in­terest in that meas­ure be­ing an­nulled or mod­i­fied.

¹ The ap­peal may be filed to chal­lenge:

a.

a vi­ol­a­tion of fed­er­al law, in­clud­ing ex­cess­ive use or ab­use of dis­cre­tion;

b.

the in­ad­miss­ible or mani­festly in­cor­rect ap­plic­a­tion of for­eign law in the cases un­der Art­icle 65.

² ...¹³⁷

The dead­line for ap­peal against the fi­nal rul­ing shall be 30 days, or ten days in the case of an in­ter­im rul­ing, from the writ­ten com­mu­nic­a­tion of the rul­ing.

¹ Only ap­peals against the fi­nal rul­ing or any oth­er rul­ing au­thor­ising the trans­mis­sion of clas­si­fied in­form­a­tion or the hand­ing over of ob­jects or as­sets to a for­eign State shall have sus­pens­ive ef­fect.¹³⁸

² An in­ter­im rul­ing pre­ced­ing the fi­nal rul­ing may be ex­ecuted im­me­di­ately.

³ The Ap­peals Cham­ber of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court may grant sus­pens­ive ef­fect to an in­ter­im rul­ing in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 if the per­son en­titled shows prob­able cause that im­me­di­ate and ir­re­par­able pre­ju­dice as defined in Art­icle 80e, para­graph 2 may res­ult.¹³⁹

¹ The ex­ecut­ing au­thor­ity and the ap­pel­late au­thor­ity shall give no­tice of their rul­ings to:

a.

the en­titled per­son liv­ing in Switzer­land;

b.

the en­titled per­son liv­ing abroad and with an ad­dress for ser­vice of doc­u­ments in Switzer­land.

² The right to no­ti­fic­a­tion shall end when the rul­ing con­clud­ing the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings be­comes leg­ally en­force­able.

¹ Hold­ers of doc­u­ments have the right to in­form their cli­ents of the ex­ist­ence of the re­quest and of all the facts re­lat­ing thereto un­less the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity has, as an ex­cep­tion, ex­pressly pro­hib­ited this and made ref­er­ence to Art­icle 292 of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code¹⁴¹ and the pen­al­ties that it car­ries.

² The per­son en­titled who in­ter­venes in pending pro­ceed­ings may no longer chal­lenge rul­ings that have be­come leg­ally en­force­able.

¹ If ad­di­tion­al in­form­a­tion is ne­ces­sary, the ex­ecut­ing or the ap­pel­late au­thor­ity shall re­quest the FOJ to ob­tain it from the re­quest­ing State.

² If ne­ces­sary, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall sus­pend deal­ing with all or part of the re­quest and rule on the points that may be dealt with based on the doc­u­ments avail­able.

³ The FOJ shall give the re­quest­ing State an ap­pro­pri­ate dead­line by which to re­spond. If the dead­line giv­en is not re­spec­ted, the re­quest for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance shall be ex­amined based on the doc­u­ments avail­able.

¹ The ex­ecut­ing and the ap­pel­late au­thor­ity as well as the FOJ may make the grant­ing of mu­tu­al as­sist­ance wholly or partly sub­ject to cer­tain con­di­tions.

² The FOJ shall com­mu­nic­ate the con­di­tions to the re­quest­ing State when the rul­ing on the grant­ing and the ex­tent of the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance is fi­nal and shall give it an ap­pro­pri­ate dead­line by which to ac­cept or re­fuse. If the dead­line giv­en is not re­spec­ted, mu­tu­al as­sist­ance may be gran­ted on the points that are not sub­ject to con­di­tions.

³ The FOJ shall ex­am­ine if the re­sponse of the re­quest­ing State sat­is­fies the con­di­tions set.

⁴ The rul­ing of the FOJ is sub­ject to an ap­peal to the Ap­peals Cham­ber of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court with­in ten days of its no­tice be­ing giv­en in writ­ing. The de­cision of the Ap­peals Cham­ber is fi­nal.¹⁴²

The re­quest­ing State shall be charged for:

a.

the re­mu­ner­a­tion of ex­perts;

b.

the re­turn of ob­jects or as­sets for the pur­pose of resti­tu­tion to the per­son en­titled.

¹ At the re­quest of the State in which the of­fence was com­mit­ted, Switzer­land may pro­sec­ute on its be­half an of­fence com­mit­ted abroad if:

a.

ex­tra­di­tion is not per­mit­ted;

b.

the de­fend­ant has to face charges in Switzer­land for oth­er more ser­i­ous of­fences; and

c.

it is guar­an­teed that the re­quest­ing State will not pro­sec­ute him for the same of­fence after ac­quit­tal or com­plet­ing a sen­tence in Switzer­land.

² A for­eign na­tion­al who is ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land may also be pro­sec­uted in Switzer­land if his ex­tra­di­tion can­not be jus­ti­fied and pro­sec­u­tion in Switzer­land seems ap­pro­pri­ate with re­gard to his per­son­al situ­ation and so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion.

³ These pro­vi­sions do not ap­ply if the of­fence is sub­ject to Swiss jur­is­dic­tion on the basis of an­oth­er pro­vi­sion.¹⁴⁴

¹ The of­fence shall be judged ac­cord­ing to Swiss law as if it had been com­mit­ted in Switzer­land.

² The for­eign law ap­plies if it is more le­ni­ent. The court may im­pose only the sen­tences provided for by Swiss law.

³ Pro­ceed­ings in the ab­sence of the de­fend­ant are not per­mit­ted.

If Swiss jur­is­dic­tion is not yet es­tab­lished, it shall be de­term­ined in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32 Crim­PC¹⁴⁶.

An­oth­er State may be re­ques­ted to pro­sec­ute an of­fence sub­ject to Swiss jur­is­dic­tion if its laws al­low the pro­sec­u­tion and ju­di­cial pun­ish­ment of the of­fence and if:

a.

the de­fend­ant is present there and his ex­tra­di­tion to Switzer­land is in­ap­pro­pri­ate or not per­mit­ted; or

b.

he is ex­tra­dited to this State and the trans­fer of the pro­sec­u­tion of­fers the pro­spect of bet­ter so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion.

¹ If an­oth­er State pro­sec­utes the of­fence, the Swiss au­thor­it­ies may not take fur­ther meas­ures against the de­fend­ant for the same of­fence:

a.

un­less the re­ques­ted State has giv­en no­tice that it is not in a po­s­i­tion to con­clude the pro­sec­u­tion; or

b.

if, ac­cord­ing to the de­cision made in the re­ques­ted State, the con­di­tions of Art­icle 5 let­ter a or b are met.

² The ef­fect of the time lim­it­a­tion pro­vi­sions un­der Swiss law is sus­pen­ded provided the pro­ceed­ings in­clud­ing en­force­ment of the sen­tence are on­go­ing in the re­ques­ted State.¹⁴⁸

³ If the de­fend­ant was ex­tra­dited to the re­ques­ted State for oth­er of­fences, this State need not ob­serve the con­di­tions of ex­tra­di­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 38 provided it grants the re­quest for pro­sec­u­tion.

In ad­di­tion to the doc­u­ments spe­cified in Art­icle 28 para­graph 3, the re­cord of crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings as well as any evid­en­tiary pro­duc­tions must be en­closed with the re­quest.

¹ The FOJ shall de­cide on wheth­er to ac­cept the for­eign re­quest after con­sult­ing the pro­sec­ut­ing au­thor­it­ies.

² If it ac­cepts the re­quest, it shall trans­mit the file to the pro­sec­ut­ing au­thor­ity and no­ti­fy the re­quest­ing State and the per­son con­cerned.

³ The de­cision does not cre­ate an ob­lig­a­tion to in­sti­tute crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.

⁴ The FOJ may re­fuse to as­sume re­spons­ib­il­ity for the pro­sec­u­tion if there is good cause not to do so or if the ser­i­ous­ness of the of­fence does not jus­ti­fy it.

Any in­vest­ig­at­ive meas­ure car­ried out by the au­thor­it­ies of the re­quest­ing State un­der its law shall be con­sidered equi­val­ent to a cor­res­pond­ing Swiss in­vest­ig­at­ive meas­ure.

¹ The costs of the pro­ceed­ings set by the re­quest­ing State shall be ad­ded to the costs of the pro­ceed­ings in Switzer­land and col­lec­ted. They are not re­fun­ded to the re­quest­ing State.

² The can­tons shall have a right of dis­pos­al over any fines paid and, sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of the Fed­er­al Act of 19 March 2004¹⁴⁹ on the Di­vi­sion of For­feited As­sets, over for­feited ob­jects.¹⁵⁰

³ The re­ques­ted State shall be no­ti­fied of the costs of the pro­ceed­ings in­curred in Switzer­land if the re­ques­ted State takes over the pro­sec­u­tion. Their re­im­burse­ment shall not be re­ques­ted.

¹ Fi­nal and en­force­able crim­in­al judg­ments from an­oth­er State may be en­forced at that State's re­quest if:

a.

the con­victed per­son is ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land or has to face charges here for a ser­i­ous of­fence;

b.

the sub­ject of the con­vic­tion is an of­fence com­mit­ted abroad which, if com­mit­ted in Switzer­land, would be pun­ish­able here; and

c.

en­force­ment in Switzer­land seems to be ap­pro­pri­ate for one of the reas­ons spe­cified in Art­icle 85 para­graphs 1 and 2 or likely to be barred in the re­quest­ing State.

² Sen­tences im­posed abroad shall be ex­ecuted provided they do not ex­ceed the max­im­um pen­alty provided by Swiss law for a cor­res­pond­ing of­fence. Sen­tences that re­main be­low the min­im­um pen­alty ac­cord­ing to Swiss law may be ex­ecuted.

³ …¹⁵¹

⁴ Fines as well as costs arising from pro­ceed­ings un­der Art­icle 63 may also be en­forced if the con­victed per­son is ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent abroad but has as­sets at his dis­pos­al in Switzer­land and if the re­quest­ing State grants re­cipro­city.

¹ The or­der per­mit­ting en­force­ment (ex­equatur) may not be is­sued if:

a.¹⁵²

the con­vic­tion took place at a time when, un­der Swiss law, the pro­sec­u­tion would have been time barred;

b.

the sen­tence would have been time barred un­der Swiss law if a Swiss au­thor­ity had im­posed it at the same time; or

c.

the of­fence is also sub­ject to Swiss jur­is­dic­tion and no sen­tence could be im­posed un­der Swiss law for oth­er reas­ons.

² De­cisions on costs shall be de­clared en­force­able only if the costs are to be paid to the State.

The court shall re­fuse to en­force in whole or in part if:

a.

the con­victed per­son has in­curred a sen­tence in­volving depriva­tion of liberty in Switzer­land for oth­er of­fences and en­force­ment as re­ques­ted would res­ult in an ob­vi­ously more severe pun­ish­ment than if the of­fences taken as a whole were judged in Switzer­land; or

b.

the ex­e­cu­tion of any of the ac­cess­ory crim­in­al meas­ures in Switzer­land is not per­mit­ted, or

c.

it is of the opin­ion that the con­victed per­son has good reas­on to op­pose the en­force­ment of a judg­ment or pen­alty or­der that was is­sued in his ab­sence and which is no longer sub­ject to a right of ob­jec­tion or ap­peal un­der the law of the re­quest­ing State.

In as­sess­ing crim­in­al li­ab­il­ity and the pos­sib­il­ity of pro­sec­u­tion un­der Swiss law, the court shall be bound to the find­ings in fact on which the de­cision re­lies. If they do not suf­fice, the gath­er­ing of evid­ence may be ordered.

If Switzer­land as­sumes re­spons­ib­il­ity for en­force­ment, no crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings against the con­victed per­son for the same of­fence may be in­sti­tuted or con­tin­ued here.

¹ If the con­di­tions of Art­icle 94 para­graph 1 are not met, sen­tences in­volving re­stric­tion of liberty that have been im­posed on a non-Swiss na­tion­al in an­oth­er State may be en­forced in Switzer­land un­der Swiss law if the oth­er State can­not ex­ecute them it­self.

² In this case, the fi­nal and en­force­able for­eign de­cision shall con­sti­tute the leg­al basis for the re­stric­tion of the con­victed per­son’s liberty.

³ If per­sons are sur­rendered to Switzer­land in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1, then un­less ar­range­ments to the con­trary have been made with the com­pet­ent au­thor­it­ies of the sur­ren­der­ing State, they may neither be pro­sec­uted nor pun­ished nor ex­tra­dited to a third State by the Swiss au­thor­it­ies for of­fences that they com­mit­ted be­fore their sur­render and that were not the sub­ject of their con­vic­tion. These ef­fects shall ex­pire ten days after re­lease on pa­role or fi­nal re­lease from the in­sti­tu­tion.

⁴ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the de­tails.

An­oth­er State may be re­ques­ted to en­force a Swiss crim­in­al judg­ment if:

a.

it is cer­tain to ac­cept the bind­ing force of the judg­ment in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 97; and

b.

the trans­fer of en­force­ment is likely to im­prove the pro­spects of the so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion of the con­victed per­son or if Switzer­land can­not ob­tain his ex­tra­di­tion.

¹ The con­victed per­son who is de­tained in Switzer­land may only be trans­ferred with a view to en­force­ment of the judg­ment un­der Art­icle 100 if he agrees and if the re­ques­ted State is ex­pec­ted to ac­cept the con­di­tions set by the FOJ.

² The con­victed per­son may be trans­ferred without his con­sent if an in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment rat­i­fied by Switzer­land so provides. In this case the con­di­tions and ef­fects of the trans­fer are reg­u­lated ex­clus­ively by the said in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment.¹⁵³

¹ If an­oth­er State en­forces the crim­in­al judg­ment, the Swiss au­thor­ity shall aban­don en­force­ment provided the re­ques­ted State has not giv­en no­tice that it will not con­clude it.

² The con­victed per­son may be taken in­to cus­tody so as to en­sure his trans­fer.

³ Art­icle 89 para­graphs 2 and 3 ap­ply by ana­logy.

In ad­di­tion to the doc­u­ments spe­cified in Art­icle 28 para­graph 3, the fol­low­ing shall be en­closed with a re­quest:

a.

the ori­gin­al or an of­fi­cially au­then­tic­ated copy of the judg­ment with a cer­ti­fic­ate at­test­ing that it is leg­ally en­force­able;

b.

a cer­ti­fic­ate at­test­ing the peri­od of de­ten­tion un­der­gone in the re­quest­ing State;

c.

if the re­ques­ted State so re­quests, the ori­gin­al or of­fi­cially au­then­tic­ated copy of the crim­in­al file.

¹ After con­sult­ing with the au­thor­ity which will ex­ecute the re­quest, the FOJ shall de­cide wheth­er to ac­cept the for­eign re­quest. If it ac­cepts, it shall con­vey the file and its opin­ion to the ex­ecut­ing au­thor­ity and in­form the re­quest­ing State. Art­icle 91 para­graph 4 ap­plies by ana­logy.

² If there is Swiss jur­is­dic­tion and if a sen­tence which is more severe than the one provided by Swiss law was im­posed abroad, the pro­sec­u­tion may be taken over in­stead of the en­force­ment of the judg­ment if the re­quest­ing State so re­quests.

The com­pet­ent court un­der Art­icle 32 Crim­PC¹⁵⁵ shall in­form the con­victed per­son of the ap­plic­able pro­ced­ure, hear him on the mat­ter, as well as his coun­sel, and de­cide on en­force­ment.

¹ The court shall ex­am­ine ex of­fi­cio wheth­er the con­di­tions for en­force­ment are met and gath­er the ne­ces­sary evid­ence.

² If the con­di­tions are met, the court shall de­clare that the de­cision may be en­forced and take the meas­ures ne­ces­sary for en­force­ment.

³ The de­cision shall be made in the form of a judg­ment con­tain­ing a state­ment of the ra­tionale there­for. Can­ton­al law shall provide for an ap­peal.

¹ The sen­tence de­term­ined by the court shall be ex­ecuted in ac­cord­ance with Swiss law.

² Ex­e­cu­tion shall be dis­con­tin­ued if the de­cision is no longer en­force­able in the re­quest­ing State.

³ If en­force­ment relates solely to a de­cision on costs, the amounts col­lec­ted after de­duc­tion of the costs in­curred shall be trans­ferred to the re­quest­ing State if it guar­an­tees re­cipro­city.

In ad­di­tion to the costs for the ex­e­cu­tion of the sen­tence, the costs of ex­equatur pro­ceed­ings and oth­er en­force­ment meas­ures shall also be re­garded as costs in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 31.