Swiss exonerate 'witch'

2008-08-27 19:05

Thomas Brunner

Bern - Anna Göldi was executed for being a witch more than 220 years ago - the last witch beheaded in Europe. On Wednesday, the Swiss decided the least they could do was to clear her name.

The parliament of the Swiss canton (state) of Glarus decided unanimously on Wednesday to exonerate Göldi as a victim of "judicial murder", said Josef Schwitter, a government spokesperson.

Göldi was executed in 1782 for an alleged case of poisoning.

Several thousand people, mainly women, were executed for witchcraft between the 14th and 18th centuries in Switzerland, and elsewhere in Europe.

Exceptional trial

Yet Göldi's trial and beheading in the village of Mollis took place at a time when witch trials had largely disappeared from the continent.

Göldi, a maidservant in the house of prominent burgher Johann Jakob Tschudi, was convicted of "spoiling" the family's daughter, causing her to spit pins and have convulsions.

Yet Tschudi, a doctor and magistrate, was alleged to have had an affair with Göldi - and if that came out, his reputation would have been seriously damaged.

The case was brought to light through a book by local journalist Walter Hauser.

'They tortured an innocent person'

The Glarus government said the Protestant Church council, which had conducted Gödi's trial, had no legal authority and had decided in advance that Göldi was guilty.

She was executed even though the law at the time did not impose the death penalty for nonlethal poisoning.

Göldi's torture and execution was even more incomprehensible, the government said, because it happened in the Age of Enlightenment when "those who made the judgment regarded themselves as educated".

"In spite of that, they tortured an innocent person and had her executed, although it was known to them that the alleged crime was neither doable nor possible and that there was no legal basis for their verdict," the government said.

The exoneration was also an acknowledgment that an unknown number of other innocent people whose cases cannot be reviewed had been killed over the centuries. The Glarus government did not assume any responsibility, however, for past wrongdoings.

A museum on Göldi opened in Mollis last year on the 225th anniversary of her death.

The Glarus government is also donating US$118 000 to create a theatre production about her life.

- SAPA