BERN: A government-ordered probe into why Swiss embassies ignored up to 10,000 Iraqi asylum requests has found that officials broke the law.
The independent investigation by retired federal judge Michel Feraud concluded that officials at the Ministry for Migration acted illegally when they ordered Switzerland’s embassies in Syria and Egypt not to process asylum requests submitted by Iraqi refugees between 2006 and 2008.
But the report blames Switzerland’s restrictive asylum rules at the time and recommends nobody be punished for the breach of law.
The Swiss government released the results of the probe Wednesday.
It said some 3,000 remaining asylum applications will be processed by the end of 2013.
