Stasi accused of Swiss disaster

Basel - Swiss authorities will look into claims made in a German television programme that the former East German secret police…

Basel - Swiss authorities will look into claims made in a German television programme that the former East German secret police may have been involved in a 1986 chemical disaster in Switzerland which wreaked environmental havoc, legal sources said yesterday.

An investigation into the fire at the Sandoz factory warehouse where 1,300 tonnes of agro-chemical products were stored was wrapped up in 1992, but the cause of the fire has never been firmly established.

On Sunday the German TV channel ZDF showed a programme claiming possible involvement by the Stasi in several chemical accidents on the Rhine to distract media attention from Russia's Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster, citing a former CIA agent as its source.