Swiss Ambassador to Germany Ordered Home

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, April 11, 2002

Swiss Ambassador to Germany Ordered Home

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The Swiss ambassador to Germany has been ordered home following a series of articles about a woman's midnight visit to the embassy while his American beauty queen wife was away, according to AP report Wednesday.

Thomas Borer will be transferred back to the Swiss capital, Bern, by month's end "because he can no longer effectively fulfill his mission in Berlin," Foreign Minister Joseph Deiss said Wednesday.

Borer, 44, has previously been in trouble with the Foreign Ministry over media exposure of himself and his wife Shawne Fielding, 32, a model who was Miss Dallas in 1992 and Miss Texas in 1994.

The nationalist Swiss People's Party, the only member of the governing coalition to oppose the recall, said the government had given in to pressure from a tabloid newspaper.

But Deiss told reporters in Bern that the decision was based solely on Borer's ability to represent Switzerland appropriately.

"The private lives of my colleagues don't interest me, as long as it doesn't hinder the carrying out of their duties," the foreign minister said.

Deiss said he didn't know what Borer's new assignment would be.

The embassy said Wednesday that there would be no statement from Borer.

Sparking the recall was a series of photographs reportedly taken March 21 outside the Swiss Embassy in Berlin.

The photos, published March 31 in the weekly SonntagsBlick, showed a woman park her car and get into a limousine, which entered the garage under the embassy at 12:47 a.m., the newspaper said.

Although no face could be seen through the tinted glass in the photograph, the newspaper said the limousine was driven by Borer.

The woman, identified as Djamile Rowe, walked out of the embassy at 2:34 a.m. and drove away, the newspaper said.

Borer and his wife, married since 1999, immediately denied that any visit had taken place and said the newspaper article was "untrue and made up."

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