How MI6 Infiltrated 'Neutral' Switzerland

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On January 25th, prominent Palestinian-American journalist and activist Ali Abunimah, cofounder of Electronic Intifada, was violently arrested by undercover operatives in Switzerland, en route to a speaking event. He proceeded to spend three days and two nights in jail completely cut off from the outside world, during which he was interrogated by local defence ministry intelligence apparatchiks without access to a lawyer or even being informed why he was being imprisoned. Abunimah was then deported in the manner of a dangerous, violent criminal.

Abunimah’s ordeal caused widespread outcry, not least due to Switzerland being the oldest ‘neutral’ state in the world. Such is Bern’s apparently indomitable commitment to this principle, it initially refused to join the UN lest its neutrality be compromised, only becoming a member in September 2002, following a public referendum. Moreover, the country routinely scores highly - if not highest - in Western human rights rankings, and has provided a safe haven for foreign journalists and human rights activists fleeing repression.

Abunimah’s flagrantly political persecution and ruthless treatment, undoubtedly motivated by his indefatigable solidarity with Palestine, stands at total odds with Swiss neutrality. So too Bern’s secret, little-known involvement in Operation Gladio. Under the auspices of this monstrous Cold War connivance, the CIA and MI6 constructed underground shadow armies of fascist paramilitaries that wreaked havoc across Europe, carrying out false flag terror attacks, robberies, and assassinations to discredit the left, install right-wing governments, and justify vicious crackdowns on dissent.

Switzerland’s Gladio unit was known as Projekt-26, the numerals referring to the country’s separate cantons. Its existence was uncovered in November 1990, as a result of an unrelated Swiss parliamentary investigation triggered months earlier. This probe was launched due to revelations local security services maintained detailed secret files on 900,000 citizens, almost one seventh of the country’s total population, throughout the Cold War.

The inquiry found during the same period, P-26 operated “outside political control”, and specifically targeted “domestic subversion”. Its membership ran to around 400, with “most” being “experts” in “weapons, telecommunications and psychological warfare.” The unit moreover “maintained a network of mostly underground installations throughout Switzerland,” and was commanded by “a private citizen who could mobilise the force without consulting [the] army or government.” Parliamentarians also concluded P-26 “cooperated with an unidentified NATO country.”

It was some time before that “NATO country” was confirmed to be Britain. Subsequent investigations shed significant light on London’s mephitic relationship with P-26, and the unit’s role within the wider Operation Gladio conspiracy. Much remains unknown about the extent of its activities, and will most certainly never emerge. But while P-26 was officially disbanded after its public exposure, the recent persecution of Ali Abunimah strongly suggests MI6 continues to exert unseen influence over Switzerland’s politics, and intelligence, military and security apparatus today.

‘A Scandal’

Discovery of P-26 prompted a dedicated inquiry into Switzerland’s “stay behind” network, overseen by local judge Pierre Cornu. It was not until April 2018 that a truncated version of his 100-page-long report was released, in French. No English translation has emerged since, and a dedicated multi-page section on P-26’s relationship with US and British intelligence is wholly redacted. Still, the report acknowledged the unit’s operatives were trained in Britain - Gladio’s secret “headquarters” - and remained in regular, covert contact with London’s embassy in Bern.

Redacted excerpt of Cornu’s report on P-26’s relationship with the CIA and MI6

Oddly, a 13-page summary of Cornu’s report, published in September 1991, was far more revealing. It noted British intelligence “collaborated closely” with P-26, “regularly” tutoring its militants in “combat, communications, and sabotage” on its home soil. British advisers - likely SAS fighters - also visited secret military sites in Switzerland. Numerous formal agreements were signed between the clandestine organisation and London, the last being inked in 1987. These covered training, and supply of weapons and other equipment.

A secret P-26 bunker in Bern

Describing collaboration between British intelligence and P-26 as “intense”, the summary was deeply scathing of this cloak-and-dagger bond, describing it as wholly lacking “political or legal legitimacy” or oversight, and thus “intolerable” from a democratic perspective. Until P-26’s November 1990 exposure, elected Swiss officials were purportedly completely unaware of the unit’s existence, let alone its operations. “It is alarming [MI6] knew more about P-26 than the Swiss government did,” the summary appraised.

P-26 was moreover backed by P-27, a private foreign-sponsored spying agency, partly-funded by an elite Swiss army intelligence unit. The latter was responsible for monitoring and building up files on “suspect persons” within the country, including; “leftists”; “bill stickers”, Jehovah’s witnesses, citizens with “abnormal tendencies”; and anti-nuclear demonstrators. To what purposes this information was put isn’t clear. Many documents detailing the activities of both P-26 and P-27, and the pair’s coordination with British intelligence, apparently couldn’t be located while Cornu conducted his investigation.

A Swiss soldier tours another secret P-26 bunker

Obfuscating the picture even further, in February 2018 it was confirmed 27 separate folders and dossiers amassed during Cornu’s probe had since mysteriously vanished. Local suspicions this trove was deliberately misplaced or outright destroyed to prevent embarrassing disclosures about “neutral” Switzerland’s relationship with US and British intelligence, and NATO, emerging abound to this day. At the time, Josef Lang, a left-leaning former Swiss lawmaker and historian, who had long-called for the Cornu report to be released in unredacted form, declared:

“There are three possibilities: the papers were shredded, hidden or lost, in that order of likelihood. But even if the most innocent option is the case, that’s also a scandal.”

‘Clandestine Networks’

The unsolved murder of Herbert Alboth amply reinforces the conclusion that shadowy elements within and without Switzerland were determined certain facts about the country’s involvement with Operation Gladio would never be known. A senior intelligence operative who commanded the “stay behind” unit during the early 1970s, in March 1990 Alboth secretly wrote to then-Defence Minister Kaspar Villiger, promising that “as an insider” he could reveal “the whole truth” about P-26. This was right when Swiss parliamentarians began investigating the secret maintenance of files on “subversives”.

Alboth never had an opportunity to testify. A month later, he was found dead in his Bern apartment, having been repeatedly stabbed in the stomach with his own military bayonet. Contemporary media reports noted a series of indecipherable characters were scrawled on his chest in felt pen, leaving police “puzzled”. Strewn around his home were photographs of senior P-26 members, “stay behind” training course documents, “exercise plans of a conspiratorial character,” and the names and addresses of fellow Swiss spies.

On November 22nd 1990, one day after P-26 was formally dissolved, the European Parliament passed a resolution on Operation Gladio. It called for the then-European Community, and all its member states, to conduct official investigations “into the nature, structure, aims and all other aspects of these clandestine organizations or any splinter groups, their use for illegal interference in the internal political affairs of the countries concerned,” involvement in “serious cases of terrorism and crime,” and “collusion” with Western spying agencies. The resolution warned:

“These organizations operated and continue to operate completely outside the law since they are not subject to any parliamentary control and frequently those holding the highest government and constitutional posts are kept in the dark as to these matters...For over 40 years [Operation Gladio] has escaped all democratic controls and has been run by the secret services of the states concerned in collaboration with NATO…Such clandestine networks may have interfered illegally in the internal political affairs of member states or may still do so.”

Yet, outside formal inquiries in Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland, nothing of substance subsequently materialised. Today, we are left to ponder whether Gladio’s constellation of European “stay behind” armies was ever truly demobilised, and if British intelligence still directs the activities of foreign security and spying agencies under the noses of elected governments. Given London’s intimate, active complicity in the Gaza genocide, and ever-ratcheting war on Palestine solidarity at home, Ali Abunimah is an obvious target for MI6.

So too Richard Medhurst, a British-born, Vienna-residing independent journalist and prominent anti-Zionist arrested upon arrival at London’s Heathrow airport in August 2024 on uncertain “counter-terror” charges. On February 3rd, Austrian police and intelligence operatives ransacked his home and studio, confiscating many of his possessions, including all his journalistic materials and tools, before detaining and questioning him for hours. Believing this to be no coincidence, Medhurst asked the officers if London had ordered the raid. An officer replied, “no, Britain doesn’t talk to us.”

Coincidentally, Austria is another ostensibly “neutral” country which MI6 embroiled in Operation Gladio. Following World War II, British intelligence armed and trained a local “stay behind” cell comprised of thousands of former SS personnel and Neo-Nazis. Innocently named the Austrian Association of Hiking, Sports and Society, like its Swiss counterpart, the unit operated with such secrecy that “only very, very highly positioned politicians” were aware. For his part, Medhurst is absolutely convinced London is behind his ongoing persecution:

“Some of these Austrian accusations are very similar to the British ones…I think it’s being coordinated with Britain…British police seized a Graphene OS device from me and [it’s] very unlikely they’d be able to crack it…I suppose that’s why Britain asked the Austrians to raid me, grab anything they could find and go on this massive fishing expedition. The warrant even mentions my arrest in London to try and bolster their case.”