The Federal Administrative Court has just confirmed the revocation of Swiss citizenship from a man in his forties living in the canton of Vaud. This is not a typical case of naturalisation fraud. This man was sentenced in France to fifteen years’ imprisonment for having co-ordinated, from Switzerland, a jihadist network linked to Islamic State, with specific plans for attacks in France and also on Swiss soil.
What makes this case particularly striking is what happened next. When the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) initiated proceedings to revoke his Swiss nationality in 2021, the man hastened to renounce his other nationality – his Bosnian one – in order to become stateless. The reasoning was clear: Swiss law only allows nationality to be revoked if the person holds another passport. Without a Bosnian passport, the process would be blocked.
The Federal Administrative Court did not see it that way. The court found that the renunciation of Bosnian nationality took place after the conviction and with the clear intention of derailing the proceedings. That reasoning prevailed. The decision may still be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court. The Swiss Civil Code allows for the revocation of nationality in cases of serious harm to the country’s interests, but the measure remains exceptional: in Switzerland, losing one’s Swiss passport is something that happens very rarely, and even then, one has to go to great lengths to achieve it.