A boxing champion shouts: "Sautamilen!" He then beats a refugee to death and becomes a symbol of far-right violence.
April 21, 2025
A boxing champion shouts: "Sautamilen!" He then beats a refugee to death – and becomes a symbol of far-right violence
Neo-Nazis, bombs, deaths: anti-asylum sentiment in Switzerland in the 1990s – and why it's forgotten today.
One hit and Santhakumar Sivaguru is on the ground.
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A moment ago, he was laughing and singing a Tamil folk song. Now, blood trickling from his nose, he is breathing with difficulty, lying flat on the concrete floor, two and a half hours into this mild summer night in 1990.
Before him, a drunken boxer dances in the square. He swings his fists in triumph until two friends pull him away.
"Tamils out! Foreigners, leave!" he said, according to a witness, before disappearing into the night between the apartment buildings of Regensdorf in the Zurich metropolitan area.
His victim, transported to hospital by helicopter, succumbed to his injuries the next day.
Santhakumar Sivaguru, 23, is the sixth refugee to die violently in just a few months. At the time, as asylum centers burned in Switzerland, neo-Nazis in Ku Klux Klan capes posed for the newspaper "Blick" and a wave of racist violence swept the country.
This act sparked angry protests, and hundreds of Tamils began a hunger strike. In central Zurich, some Swiss offered them tea, while others spat on them. The Regensdorf attack became a symbol of the conflict between openness and demarcation that divided Switzerland into two camps at the time.
And then the act – like the time it represents – disappears from collective memory overnight.
Sivaguru's death also represents something else: how a country can simply forget the largest wave of far-right violence in its recent history.
He took refuge in Switzerland and died in Regensdorf: Santhakumar Sivaguru (1966-1990), also known as "Jeevan".
With the urn through the war zone
The story of Santhakumar Sivaguru begins with its end: with a Swiss man who risks his life for the dead.
Northern Sri Lanka, late 1990. Bombs are falling, the Tamil Tiger militia is fiercely fighting government troops from the south. And Erich Schmid, a filmmaker from Zurich, is crossing the civil war zone in a white motorbike rickshaw.
In his luggage, he has a camera and a plastic bag filled with banknotes. And a large copper-colored urn.
"Actually, I should have been afraid," Schmid says today of his trip. "But at the time, I thought: If the people there can endure this for years, I should be able to do it for two weeks too."
Schmid, now 78, an elegant gentleman with gray hair and red glasses, was working for Swiss television at the time. He is well connected in the Tamil diaspora and is considered an informal contact person.
In the film As he travels, bombs fall from planes, children run into holes in the ground, and burning wrecks lie on the side of the road. A militiaman proudly shows him the cyanide capsule he plans to swallow if captured. And in a bungalow in the middle of the combat zone, a weeping mother mourns her son: Santhakumar Sivaguru.
Two years earlier, he had been imprisoned here in a military camp, buried up to his neck in the earth, according to his relatives, for three days because he was suspected of being a rebel. But he escaped and was able to flee to Switzerland. »id-doc-1intri22v14″
> Now his mother holds the urn containing his remains. Santhakumar Sivaguru, who fled Sri Lanka and died in Regensdorf, has returned home. »id-doc-1intri22v15″
Before being cremated, Santhakumar Sivaguru's compatriots wrote him a farewell poem in Switzerland. It reads: "We are not in our country. / We cannot do you justice. / We can do nothing but cry."
content pagetype=”image-description-caption” componenttype=”true”is-new-line-child=
> “The Swiss authorities refused to bring the body back to Sri Lanka – it was too dangerous,” explains filmmaker Schmid. At the time, he found this ironic, as deportations to the country were taking place at the same time. “It was safe enough for living refugees, but not for the dead.” »id-doc-1intri2300″
> He therefore brought the ashes back to Sri Lanka. He has kept the cremation certificate from Switzerland to this day. It confirms to the Sri Lankan authorities that the urn "can be transported without risk to public health." »id-doc-1intri2301″
> »id-doc-1intri2302″ A Mysterious Escape »Article»
is-new-line-child=> Dead, he no longer poses a threat. But until then, Sivaguru is considered dangerous to life. »id-doc-1intri2303″
> He was born in 1966 in Chavakacheri, a small town in the far north of Sri Lanka. When he was ten years old, a pogrom against the Tamil minority took place in the region. At fourteen and sixteen, he experienced two more. Then the war began. »id-doc-1intri2304″
> Sivaguru's family belongs to the middle class and owns their own small house. A young man, a Tamil, who claims to be a student, is enough to make him suspect in the eyes of the government troops. »id-doc-1intri2305″
> In his early twenties, he was taken prisoner as a suspected rebel. When he refused to join a pro-government militia, his only option was to flee. First south, then abroad. This is what relatives told us at the time. This information cannot be verified. »id-doc-1intri2306″
> What is certain is that on January 14, 1989, Sivaguru entered Germany under a false name. Thanks to a fake passport, he was able to fly from Sri Lanka to Frankfurt am Main. His destination: Switzerland, where his uncle already lived. »id-doc-1intri2307″
It took him nine days to reach Geneva, where he applied for asylum under his real name on January 27. Sivaguru was interrogated and taken to a remote shelter in the canton of Valais. »id-doc-1intri2308″
> Then, as suddenly as he came, he disappears again. The young Tamil disappears. The Swiss authorities will only find him dead. »id-doc-1intri2309″
> »id-doc-1intri23010″ Fires, deaths, swastikas »Article»
is-new-line-child=> The country in which Santhakumar Sivaguru places all his hopes is in the grip of "asylum seeker" fever. »id-doc-1intri23011″
> In the late 1980s, the number of asylum seekers in Switzerland increased sharply. The newspaper "Blick" stirred up resentment and repeatedly reported that refugees could supposedly afford leather jackets. "Tamil heroin addicts" and "stabbings, drugs, rapes" were reported because of the "Tamil problem."
And then the attacks begin.
Posing for the "Blick" photographer: members of the far-right Patriotic Front on Mount Rigi in 1989.
Josef Ritler / RDB
On July 2, 1989, a refugee center in Chur caught fire. The confession letter read: "Get the asylum seekers and drug dealers out of our villages and towns. Or we will burn the rabble until no one remains in our homes!" Four Tamils died, including two children. Shortly after, the house in Chur caught fire twice. »id-doc-1intri2310″
> The asylum accommodation centers in Klosters (GR), Beckenried (NW), Steinhausen (ZG), Oberiberg (SZ), Herrenschwanden (BE) and Weinfelden (TG) are also the target of arson attacks, homemade bombs and live ammunition. »id-doc-1intri2311″
> The only data on this wave of violence has been compiled in a Geneva thesis »p » in 1995. According to this, there were a total of 378 acts of extreme right-wing violence between 1988 and 1993, including 114 assassinations and 79 attacks on people. Three times more incidents than in the mid-1980s, one attack every twenty days. »true » There are also gunshot wounds, fights, threatening letters, swastikas. And right-wing extremists proudly posing for the "Blick" photographer. Sometimes in Ku Klux Klan capes, sometimes unveiled in front of burning crosses, arms raised in the Hitler salute.
componenttype=
Far-right skinhead scenes and several neo-Nazi groups are forming in German-speaking Switzerland. They attack asylum centers, hunt down refugees, and the police let them do what they want – for example, in November 1989 in Steinhausen, in the canton of Zug. »Article»
is-new-line-child= »id-doc-1intri2314″> The Patriotic Front, led by Marcel Strebel from central Switzerland is often involved in such attacks. »p » Its symbol, the Arrow Cross, is based on the swastika. In 1991, under the name Party of the Future, it won 6.4 percent of the vote in the canton of Schwyz. »true »
Switzerland's most famous neo-Nazi: Marcel Strebel (back) and two comrades are portrayed as patriots in the newspaper "Sonntags-Blick". »itemscope» Sonntags-Blick / RDB / Getty »https://img.nzz.ch/2025/03/20/0fceca51-209f-440d-876d-6102b0cab4ba.jpeg?width=1200&height=1593&fit=crop&quality=75&auto=webp » In six years, far-right violence has left 13 people dead, most of them refugees. There have also been 145 injured. The death toll, measured relative to the population, is significantly higher than in Germany, for example, where a wave of racist violence left at least 34 dead.
> He says thugs ambushed him and his compatriots late in the evening, as they were returning to their accommodation after a day's work at the restaurant. The men had clubs, sometimes firearms. "We always go home in groups." The police have generally not responded to reports: they don't know who the attackers are. »image-description-author »
content pagetype= »id-doc-1intri2318″ componenttype= »Article » is-new-line-child= »p »> »true »Evening in Regensdorf
On June 20, 1990, a Wednesday, Santhakumar Sivaguru finished his work day late.
Shortly after midnight, he left the Furtbächli restaurant in Regensdorf, where he worked as a kitchen assistant – as was legally possible at the time. “He was calm and reliable,” his boss would later say of him in Schmid’s film. “Every time he came, it was like the sun rising. He laughed when he arrived. And he laughed when he left.”
A year and a half after his disappearance without a trace, Sivaguru found a job and a room. To do so, he crossed half of Switzerland—from Valais to the canton of Zurich—and filed a new asylum application under a false name. The name: "Jeevan."
Why this game of hide-and-seek with the authorities? Probably because he hoped to find work and a salary more easily in Zurich. This is what filmmaker Erich Schmid suspects based on his conversations with the family. She is said to have taken out a $5,000 loan for her trip to Switzerland. Money that Sivaguru wants to repay quickly. He lives frugally in Regensdorf. »true»
Santhakumar Sivaguru works as a kitchen assistant in the canton of Zurich. “You laughed a lot and made everyone laugh,” two friends wrote about him. »Article»
On the evening of July 20, he met a friend after work and made a phone call from the train station. Later, he treated himself to a beer at the nightclub next to the Mövenpick Hotel. »http://schema.org/ImageObject»
componenttype= »In the canton of Zurich, Santhakumar Sivaguru works as a helper. “You have a lot of fun and everything is missing,” write two friends about him. » is-new-line-child= »article-image »> Shortly before two o'clock, he leaves the restaurant with his friend and walks outside. Here, between the urban towers and a concrete fountain, he sits on the stone floor and sings. »3478″
His friend joins him, and the two chat and laugh. Right next to them, four Swiss teenagers are doing the same thing. It was peaceful, one of them said later. "The Tamils had fun, and we had fun."
A few meters away, at the Mövenpick Hotel, Werner Landolt (name changed) is spending an evening entirely to his liking. It is the company party of a well-known company in Regensdorf. Landolt, 39, is the company driver and a former Swiss boxing champion. »true»
He goes from table to table, picking up half-empty bottles of wine. Then he drinks it with the people sitting next to him. Later, he goes to a bar. The waitresses are subjected to obscene remarks everywhere, as they will later report. At 2:30 a.m., he leaves the hotel with two colleagues and pees in a bush. »true»
content pagetype= »id-doc-1intri2322″ componenttype= »Article » is-new-line-child= »p »> He was wobbling as if he were trying to water a lawn with a garden hose. That is how witnesses will remember him. »true »
content pagetype= »id-doc-1intri2323″ componenttype= »Article » is-new-line-child= »p »> Then he heard laughter. »true »
content pagetype= »id-doc-1intri2324″ componenttype= »Article » is-new-line-child= »p »> It comes from the young Swiss, towards whom the boxer is now heading angrily. But then he sees Santhakumar Sivaguru and the second Tamil refugee. He turns away and shouts – according to witnesses – “Sautamilen!” or “Fucking Tamils!”
content pagetype= »id-doc-1intri2325″ componenttype= »Article » is-new-line-child= »p »> And strikes. »true »
content pagetype=”id-doc-1intri2326″ componenttype=”Article” is-new-line-child=”p”>”true”“Repressed emotions”
The next morning, three police officers showed up at Landolt's door. They had spent an entire night questioning witnesses, searching for the thug who had fled so quickly.
When he was arrested, he began to rant: against the "Schöggiköpfe" (chocolate heads) who earned more money than his retired father.
Questioned by police shortly afterward, he said: "There may be genuine refugees. But within a group, Tamils can be particularly insolent. This breeds hatred towards these people."
He explained to the prosecutor in charge of the case that he had “repressed feelings” about it that same day. For example, he was upset by “the way Tamils ‘stare’ at women.” There is only one thing Landolt denies: that the blow with which he killed Santhakumar Sivaguru the previous night had anything to do with these views.
For the police, however, the case is clear. As they told Blick, "racist ideas led to this act." The tabloid calls Werner Landolt a "drunken xenophobe." The Tages-Anzeiger headlines: "Swiss racist kills Tamils." The NZZ: "Another asylum seeker killed by a Swiss."
Landolt, a former flyweight boxing champion, became an overnight symbol of far-right violence.
A week after Sivaguru's death, 200 Tamils sat in the Münsterhof in Zurich. They remained there quietly for three days without eating anything. A placard read: "He died because he was Tamil."
On a leaflet: "You feared for your life there. Someone here took it from you."
The news spread like wildfire among his compatriots, says Anton Ponrajah. Another dead, another one of us. "What happened in Regensdorf happened everywhere."
At the end of the strike, a demonstration took place in Zurich, attended by around 1,500 people. The action became a political issue.
An act of political explosiveness: around 1,500 people demonstrated in Zurich in 1990 against racially motivated violence.
Keystone
“id-doc-1intri2332” A turning point in asylum policy »Article»
is-new-line-child=> In 1990, Swiss asylum policy underwent a historic upheaval. In just ten years, the number of individual asylum applications increased more than tenfold. The reason: refugees are no longer accepted based on quotas – they have enjoyed individual asylum rights since 1981. »id-doc-1intri2333″
> Large groups from communist countries like Czechoslovakia are giving way to individual migrants from outside Europe, notably Sri Lanka, Turkey, and the Congo. In the 1980s, applications numbered tens of thousands a year, half of them from Tamils and Turkish Kurds. In terms of population, Switzerland is one of the countries in Europe with the largest number of asylum seekers. »id-doc-1intri2334″
> This has political consequences: the 1981 asylum law is gradually being tightened by Parliament. The Federal Council is lobbying for repatriation with great publicity. The authorities are dragging out application procedures to grant refugees a provisional permit instead of a definitive one, the forerunner of today's "provisional admission." »id-doc-1intri2335″
> In response to these tougher measures, a left-wing asylum movement is forming. The now ubiquitous politicization of the refugee issue – on both the left and the right – begins. »id-doc-1intri2336″
> On the right, violence against "foreigners" is seen as the result of an overly lax refugee policy; on the left, it is seen as the result of an increasingly xenophobic policy. »id-doc-1intri2337″
In 1990, a hunger strike on Münsterplatz made visible what had remained hidden until then: the fear of right-wing extremist violence among Tamil refugees.
content pagetype= »image-description-author »componenttype=
Werner Landolt's punch fuels the debate on xenophobic violence. Members of the National Council and the Zurich government comment on this point. »Article»
is-new-line-child= »id-doc-1intri2342″> But Landolt then suddenly begins to change his statements. »Article»
is-new-line-child= »id-doc-1intri2343″> »Article » An aggressor becomes a victim »p »
The further back in time his crime occurred, the more precise and less incriminating Werner Landolt's memory of it becomes. This is shown by court documents relating to the case, which the NZZ was able to consult. »subtitle»
The story now goes that the refugees provoked him, perhaps even threatened him. He suddenly claims to have heard "dog pig," but neither recognized nor noticed the color of his skin. »Article»
With Landolt's statements, the authorities' narrative about the crime also changes. An act of racist violence becomes a tragic, isolated incident—the unfortunate result of a drunken outburst of rage. Sometimes the investigation focuses only on serious assault and battery, and in his closing argument, the prosecutor denies any racist motive. »Article»
The way in which the aggressor is viewed also changes, as can be seen on a rainy Tuesday in February 1992. It is the day of Landolt's hearing before the Dielsdorf District Court. »Article»
There, a man appeared before the judge, whom his own lawyer described as a “simply structured personality.” Someone who was unhappy and frightened by the “talks about the flood of asylum seekers.” »Article»
is-new-line-child= »id-doc-1intri2354″> Son of an alcoholic, beaten at home as a child, thrown out onto the streets by his father. Who left school after eight years and calls himself the “tuber of the family.” And who, shortly after his greatest triumph—the title of boxing champion—lost two fingers and his sporting career in a work accident. »Article»
A symbol of xenophobia, he became a pitiful victim of social circumstances. Never a member of a party, never known as a neo-Nazi. »Article»
A psychiatric expert believes that his mental capacity was impaired on the evening in question due to his blood alcohol level of 1.6 to 2.5 per mille. And he speculates, without evidence, that Landolt – who was “extremely sensitive” at the time of the crime – must have been “provoked.” »Article»
Gone is the frustration with the "chocolate heads," gone is the "hatred" toward the "brazen" refugees of the first interrogations. Instead, Landolt says, "I attacked the Tamils like a robot." »Article»
He insists he has nothing against asylum seekers. “I’m not a racist.” On the contrary: “All foreigners love me.” »Article»
> Not another day in prison: The lenient sentence handed down to the 41-year-old boxer is causing skepticism even in the bourgeois camp. »No further days in prison: The mild sentence against the 41-year-old boxer is causing skepticism even in the bourgeois camp. »
The boxer was ultimately found guilty of negligent homicide and failure to provide emergency assistance. The sentence: 18 months suspended. This means that Landolt will not have to spend more than 13 days in pretrial detention.
This lenient verdict was criticized not only by leftists but also by conservatives like Franz Steinegger, then president of the Swiss FDP. He stated: “To deter potential perpetrators with a similar xenophobic attitude, a harsher sentence would probably have been appropriate.” »Article»
is-new-line-child= »id-doc-1intri2381″> »Article » A series of isolated cases »p »
componenttype= »id-doc-1intri2382″ is-new-line-child= »Article »> The murder of Santhakumar Sivaguru is not the only attack on an asylum seeker in which the judiciary ignores the political context. »subtitle »
In the fatal fire in Chur, the police failed to investigate the far-right milieu despite clear evidence, such as Tamedia magazine recently reported. particularly demonstrated. The Grisons authorities closed the investigation in the autumn of 1989, even before receiving the forensic report on the cause of the fire.
Their reasoning: The cause could not be determined. However, the report states: "Arson is the leading cause of death."
Similar incidents occurred throughout Switzerland during these years. According to the Geneva undergraduate thesis, the perpetrators were identified in only 16 of the 125 attacks that occurred between 1984 and 1993.
As recently as 1989, the Federal Prosecutor's Office claimed that attacks by far-right skinheads were "not based on genuine right-wing extremist sentiment." This is a common attitude among authorities.
The homemade bomb in the asylum? "Youthful exuberance," says the interrogator. The windows of the refugee shelter smashed by skinheads? "Scoundrel behavior," says the investigating judge. The car-borne shots that seriously injure an asylum seeker? The result of "excessive alcohol consumption," according to the police.
The police also stood by when the Patriotic Front attacked a refugee shelter in Steinhausen (ZG) in 1989. "Asylum seekers are not an easy target," the responsible government advisor complained.
The operations commander, however, said: "They actually wanted to demonstrate in a non-violent manner, but they do not always control their horde."
Are the Swiss authorities blind in their right eye? This criticism was highly relevant at the time. It wasn't until 1989 that a parliamentary commission of inquiry adopted its report on the case. New dangers, such as right-wing extremism, were "recognized only with hesitation" by the responsible authorities.
The Patriotic Front, for example, was completely unknown to the federal prosecutor in charge during his interrogation.
Forgotten History
Thus dismissed as a series of regrettable isolated incidents, the spate of anti-Tamil violence also remains politically inconsequential. By the mid-1990s, they had gradually faded away, as the war cries of the time—such as "bogus refugees" or "welfare parasites"—grew to the forefront of the political scene.
There was no reassessment even when the image of Tamils began to change in the late 1990s: from menacing figures to model immigrants ready to work. Or when a 2007 study showed that Tamil refugees were no more likely to commit crimes in the 1980s and 1990s than the rest of the population.
Today, unlike in Germany, for example, the wave of violence of the 1990s is rarely mentioned. Fribourg history professor Damir Skenderovic finds the reason for this in the Swiss self-image. "It is strongly influenced by the idea of a special case. We believe that our democratic foundation is stronger than that of others. Right-wing extremists cannot succeed there. The fact that Switzerland – like other European countries – has a long history of such movements is repressed.
The result is a kind of amnesia: "We get angry for a short while, then we forget these actions again." »id-doc-1intri23a3″
> The story of Santhakumar Sivaguru is also forgotten today. There is nothing in Switzerland to commemorate the young Tamil who became a political symbol after his death: no tombstone, no commemorative plaque. »id-doc-1intri23a4″
> He found his final resting place in Sri Lanka in 1990, in the midst of the civil war that had once made him a refugee. »id-doc-1intri23a5″
"You feared for your life there – someone here took it from you." – In Switzerland, there is almost nothing left to remind us of Santhakumar Sivaguru (1966–1990). »lazy»
content pagetype= »image-description-caption » componenttype= »true »data-vars-danzz-last-article-element=
The case files are located in the Zurich State Archives and in the private archives of Erich Schmid. »Article»
>Find out more »https://www.nzz.ch/zuerich/rechtsextreme-und-neonazi-warum-musste-ein-tamilischer-fluechtling-sterben-ld.1876230″
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