Swiss Criminal Procedure Code
(Criminal Procedure Code, CrimPC)

¹ The po­lice shall es­tab­lish the iden­tity of the ar­res­ted per­son im­me­di­ately after the ar­rest, in­form him or her of the reas­on for the ar­rest in a lan­guage the per­son can un­der­stand and cau­tion the per­son as to his or her rights with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 158. There­after, they shall in­form the pub­lic pro­sec­utor im­me­di­ately of the ar­rest.

² They shall then ques­tion the ar­res­ted per­son in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 159 on the sus­pec­ted of­fences and carry out ap­pro­pri­ate in­vest­ig­a­tions im­me­di­ately in or­der to sub­stan­ti­ate or re­but the al­leg­a­tions and any oth­er grounds for de­ten­tion.

³ If in­vest­ig­a­tions re­veal that there are no grounds for de­ten­tion or such reas­ons no longer ap­ply, they shall re­lease the ar­res­ted per­son im­me­di­ately. If the in­vest­ig­a­tions con­firm the sus­pi­cions and any grounds for de­ten­tion, they shall hand the per­son over to the pub­lic pro­sec­utor im­me­di­ately.

⁴ Re­lease or han­dover shall in any case take place at the latest with­in 24 hours; if the per­son was stopped be­fore the ar­rest, then the peri­od while stopped shall be taken in­to ac­count when cal­cu­lat­ing the time lim­it.

⁵ If the po­lice have pro­vi­sion­ally ar­res­ted a per­son in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 217 para­graph 3, the per­son may only be held for more than 3 hours if a cor­res­pond­ing or­der is giv­en by a po­lice of­ficer au­thor­ised to do so by the Con­fed­er­a­tion or the can­ton.