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![Günther Tschanun before the Zurich Higher Court after the verdict was pronounced on February 29, 1988.]()
Keystone
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Günther Tschanun before the Zurich Higher Court after the verdict was pronounced on February 29, 1988.
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![Fled to France after his act: wanted poster of the Zurich police 1986.]()
Keystone
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Fled to France after his act: wanted poster of the Zurich police 1986.
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![Tschanun in the year - during his time as Claudio Trentinaglia in Ticino.]()
Zvg
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Tschanun in the year – during his time as Claudio Trentinaglia in Ticino.
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![Under this granite slab lie the bones of hundreds of nameless dead - including those of Tschanuns.]()
Myrtle Müller
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Under this granite slab lie the bones of hundreds of nameless dead – including those of Tschanuns.
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These are sad lines that a mother wrote to the Zurich government council on April 30, 1999: “It was only 13 years ago that my husband was murdered. A difficult time. ” She is reminded of the loss on a daily basis – “be it through the comments of passers-by or the general state of being alone when you lose your husband through such an act of violence.”
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Back then there was a rumor that her husband’s murderer would soon be set free and given a new identity: “Where is morality, where is ethics?” Asks the unfortunate woman. «Who pays for these costs? You, my son and I as taxpayers? Is this measure really justifiable? “
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Faithful to the law, but with no regrets
The criminal is one of the most colorful in Swiss judicial history: Günther Tschanun. As head of the Zurich construction police, he shot and killed four employees in 1986 and seriously injured a fifth. In 2000, after two-thirds of his sentence, he was duly released. For the next two decades he remained a phantom for the public, his name became a symbol for the abysses that can lie hidden behind a Spiesser facade.
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Last week, Tamedia journalist Michèle Binswanger brought light into the darkness with her revelations: In 2015, at the age of 73, Tschanun died in a bicycle accident in his Ticino retreat, Losone, where he lived under the new name Claudio Trentinaglia. Files from the Zurich Department of Justice show how Tschanun lived in freedom for the last 15 years: quite modest, law-abiding and to a certain extent rehabilitated, in line with the Swiss legal system. But even without remorse, unwilling to therapy – and lost in increasingly absurd victim fantasies.
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“No help in relation to the grief work”
The documents, which SonntagsBlick had access to, also reveal how difficult the situation of the bereaved was. Tschanun became a role model for films and books, cultural workers took care of him, journalists sought his contact in personal letters. The relatives of the murdered, on the other hand, felt forgotten – despite the Victims Assistance Act introduced in 1993, which regulates their support. In addition, there was a serious error in the delivery of the mail, which meant that two affected families had to find out from the press that Tschanun had been released.
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Not only the widow mentioned had turned to the authorities in desperation. The father of another deceased wrote on January 12, 2000, shortly before Tschanun’s release, to the head of the Zurich Penitentiary Office: “To this day, I have not received any sympathy from either the city of Zurich or the judiciary of the canton of Zurich. So far, I have not received any satisfaction from the city or the canton. ” There is “no assistance in relation to the work of mourning,” he complains, “assistance that all those affected are sorely in need of”.
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He also compared himself to security guard Meili
In stark contrast to this is the self-image of the quadruple murderer. His life lie that he was a victim of the judiciary, the media and the economy took on crazy features over the years. As early as 1991, while still in prison, he wrote to a journalist in an interview that was rejected: «Images slide tirelessly between your letter and me. Images from the film ‘The lost honor of Katharina Blum’ … »The novel of the same name by Heinrich Böll is about a woman who is cornered by cynical reporters until she kills one of them.
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In 1997 Tschanun compared his situation with that of the whistleblower Christoph Meili, who started the affair of the dormant assets: “The press is in a tough cutthroat competition. In the market economy, ethics is an alien concept. Mr. Christof Meili, security guard, was so dragged through the press as a traitor and criminal, in the USA as a hero, that he could no longer live in Switzerland. “
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A letter dated January 6, 2013 to his new probation officer revealed the peak of this self-perception. Nobel Peace Prize winners are Tschanun just good enough as a reference: “It is quite clear to me that every evaluation / assessment / criticism / recognition … is always a question of perspective (how different, for example, the men Obama, Mandela, Dalai Lama … become through seen the different glasses). “
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Role-playing against freaks
The hatred of the fourth estate pervades the vitae of the violent perpetrator. On May 21, 2008, a social worker posted a memo indicating a threat to the media. Because the press is “a massive form of violence” for him, the expert sums up from a conversation with Tschanun, for Tschanun “it is still a very serious option to go into the throats of violence (specifically to Zurich) – then surrender hold on, what will emerge, the media would then have to keep watching … ».
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The supervisors recognized the need for action: his probation officer once played the questioning reporter in a role-play, Tschanun had to “parry the attacks” – to practice in order to prevent worse things from happening.
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Medienverlag donated for the media hater
Shortly after his release in 2001 – the IV application was still pending – Tschanun was penniless. He needed money for clothes and a studio, but also for an unforeseen dentist’s bill of 3365 francs. So the judicial officers started fundraising at well-known charitable foundations – of course for Claudio Trentinaglia, not for Günther Tschanun. The benefactors did not find out whose reintegration they were actually donating money for.
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The patrons – they ranged from the Gottfried Keller Lodge Foundation (1,500 francs) to the Huber Graf and Billeter Graf Foundation (1,500 francs) – also included the magazine “Observer”. The owner at the time, Jean-Frey-Verlag, made 1500 francs for Signor Trentinaglia out of the SOS Observer Foundation. So media hater Tschanun – of all people – became the beneficiary of a generous media company.
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The father of one of the victims described his situation as follows: He had become aware, he wrote in 2000, “how helpless, even powerless this act still makes and continues to be”.
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