Two men in their fifties, who were French residents at the time of the offences, have just been sentenced by the Gruyère District Court to seven and eight years’ imprisonment respectively, to be served without parole, plus deportation from Swiss territory upon their release from prison. The offence: blowing up three cash machines in 2022, in Pont (VD), on the Gruyère motorway in Avry-devant-Pont (FR) and in Gumefens (FR). A third accomplice had already been sentenced in 2024 to four years’ imprisonment for the same offences. The case is now closed for all three.
What is striking about the trial is the way in which the conviction was reached. The defence cited the lack of direct material evidence and called for an acquittal. The court based its decision on other factors: the confessions of the already convicted accomplice, the geolocation of the mobile phones during the attacks, and the identical modus operandi in all three cases. In Switzerland, when explosives are involved, it is Fedpol that leads the investigation. And the case files are closed with great detail.
This is not an isolated incident. Just this week, there was another bomb attack on a BCV cash machine in Ballaigues (VD), on 16 July at 3 am. The perpetrators are still at large. The spate of attacks on cash machines in Switzerland has shown no sign of abating in recent years. The perpetrators are almost always young French people recruited by criminal networks via social media, sometimes minors. This phenomenon has now spread to gun shops too: this year, Fedpol has recorded more than three hundred cases of thefts from garages and gun shops, the majority of which involve French nationals.
Seven or eight years, plus deportation. For some, that is too much; for others, it is not enough, given his track record and the damage he has caused. That debate exists. But what is clear is that the Swiss justice system, when it has the evidence, does not hand down token sentences.