Sex-claim row Swiss envoy recalled

Borer denied having late-night visitors to the Berlin embassy

GENEVA, Switzerland -- A newspaper chief has been defending his papers over stories that led to the recall of Bern's partying ambassador to Germany.

Thomas Borer, 44, was recalled on Wednesday over articles in Blick and its Sunday stablemate SonntagsBlick about the visit of another woman to the embassy while his American beauty queen wife was away.

Michael Ringier, head of the Ringier Presse publishing house that owns the two newspapers, says he would have vetoed running the story but that the Borers' denials made it the right decision.

"The story would have been dead if the Borers hadn't been so dumb as to deny the whole thing," he told The Associated Press.

Borer is to be transferred back to the capital Bern by the end of April "because he can no longer effectively fulfil his mission in Berlin," Foreign Minister Joseph Deiss said.

He said he did not know what Borer's new assignment would be. Borer had turned down a diplomatic post in another country, he said. Berlin is one of the most important diplomatic missions for the Swiss.

The flamboyant envoy had previously been in trouble with the foreign ministry over media exposure of himself and his wife -- Shawne Fielding, 32, a career model who was Miss Dallas in 1992 and Miss Texas in 1994.

Having acquired a reputation as a partygoer in Berlin, Borer first attracted attention as Swiss ambassador to Berlin in 1999 when he went to a party dressed -- in leaves -- as "autumn."

A year ago his wife provoked an inquiry by the Swiss foreign ministry by appearing as the "Cowgirl from the Alps" in the glossy German magazine Max, clad in a strapless evening dress atop a horse on the embassy steps.

Other pictures showed her in a red miniskirt in front of the Swiss flag on the embassy roof and wearing the American flag as a necktie -- a bejewelled dollar sign above her plunging cleavage.

Borer and his wife denied media reports that another woman visited the embassy while Fielding was away in March. The woman, Djamile Rowe, was quoted as saying in an interview with Blick that she had an affair with the ambassador.

Anonymous tip

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

The photos, published on March 31 in 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.

Wife Shawne Fielding provoked an inquiry with her "Cowgirl from the Alps" pose

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."

Borer told AP that he had neither on that night nor on any other received visits from men or women. Fielding told AP she stood behind her husband completely.

The denials led to a string of articles in the daily Blick and SonntagsBlick accusing Borer of lying.

Blick then printed an interview with Rowe in which she claimed to have visited the embassy five times when Fielding was away and said that she and the ambassador had had sex.

The newspaper said it made the photo assignment at the embassy on the basis of an anonymous tip.

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 AP 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.

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