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Last Update: March 13, 2023, 09:08 AM IST
FIFA World Cup in Qatar (AP)
The Qatari emirate rejected the allegations, saying they were part of a “smear campaign” by the European media.
Qatar spied on a 2017 meeting between former Swiss attorney general and FIFA president Gianni Infantino, a newspaper reported on Sunday, amid fears it could be stripped of hosting last year’s World Cup.
The Emirates rejected the allegations, saying they were part of a “smear campaign” by the European media.
But according to NZZ am Sonntag weekly, an intelligence operation recorded a meeting at a luxury Bern hotel between Michael Lauber and Infantino, Switzerland’s top prosecutor at the time. The newspaper cited official documents and other sources.
The newspaper said an investigation spanning several months revealed that the June 16, 2017 meeting was secretly recorded. Lauber lost his job after the discussion became public.
Lauber’s attorney told the newspaper that his client did not know he was being spied on.
Lauber’s office was at the time investigating allegations of widespread corruption within world football, including alleged irregularities in the vote to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.
The prosecutor was forced to step down after it was discovered that he had met with Infantino three times. Lauber initially refused to hold the meetings.
FIFA also investigated the meetings, but an investigation found that Infantino, who said the talks were “completely legal”, had no reason to respond.
‘Project Matterhorn’
NZZ said the 2017 meet was held at the luxury Hotel Schweizerhof, which has been run by Qatari owners since 2009, in a conference room in the same corridor as the Qatari embassy.
The report said Qatar tried to seek international opinion amid the risk of losing the right to host the 2022 World Cup over allegations of corruption and human rights abuses.
With the help of former CIA agents, the country spied on FIFA officials and Lauber, according to NZZ, which said it had obtained “official secret documents” on hotel bugging.
The newspaper said sources with direct knowledge described the operation on condition of anonymity and said it had the code name “Project Matterhorn”.
Sources said the purpose of the snooping was to collect incriminating material which could be used to put pressure on the prosecutor.
With the bugging campaign, Qatar may have learned that the Swiss attorney general perjured his officials when he said there had been no informal meetings with Infantino since 2016.
According to NZZ, Lauber’s lawyer said that the former attorney general had no knowledge of any bugging or recording of the Schweizerhof meeting, and that he had never been blackmailed or contacted by Qatari operatives.
The Qatari government said it may take legal action over the reports.
“The allegations are another attempt to spread misinformation about Qatar and damage its reputation,” said a statement issued by the government’s International Media Office.
“We reject the allegations and are exploring all legal avenues. It is abundantly clear that the many discredit campaigns against Qatar in Europe, revealed earlier this month by media reports in France, Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe, continue unabated.”
Qatar said that “reputable” media should “verify the authenticity of such baseless allegations before contributing to spreading disinformation”.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)
