Basel media lawyer Martin Wagner was shot dead
The well-known media lawyer Martin Wagner, who was briefly publisher of the Basler Zeitung, was shot dead on Sunday morning. The motive is said to be of a private nature and to have nothing to do with Wagner's professional activities.
A 57-year-old Swiss man was shot dead in Rünenberg BL on Sunday. The suspected perpetrator, a 39-year-old Swiss, executed himself after the crime, according to initial findings by police and the Basel-Landschaft public prosecutor's office. The person killed is media lawyer Martin Wagner. The perpetrator and the victim are said to have known each other - but the crime had no connection with Wagner's professional activities, the public prosecutor's office said.
Martin Wagner has not been an unknown quantity as a media lawyer: Among other things, he had a hand in the takeover of Basel Newspaper by Christoph Blocher played a role and in 2017 for investors Ringier the View want to buy.
Born in 1960, Martin Wagner, a lawyer, was well connected in the rural canton, for example as legal counsel to the trade association, aka the Baselland Chamber of Commerce, or as a lobbyist for homeowners. In 2011, he ran unsuccessfully for the National Council on the Basel-Landschaft FDP list.
Wagner came to the attention of the Swiss public in 2010, when he spent ten months as publisher of the Basler Zeitung (BaZ) under main investor Tito Tettamanti. After six months, this duo appointed Blocher intimate Markus Somm as editor-in-chief, which caused a lot of fuss around the BaZ-triggered a change of course.
Blocher then officially appeared as a donor in 2011. From 2012, Wagner was again active as a corporate lawyer for BaZ, as he had been previously. Wagner was also Chairman of the Board of Directors of Weltwoche Verlags AG until 2011.
Last March, Wagner made a big splash with a 200 million takeover offer for the View-Group was once again the talk of the country. He himself did not disclose which investors he was acting for; the media company Ringier, for its part - which rejected the deal - spoke of former SVP National Councilor Walter Frey as the main investor behind Wagner.
Wagner also worked closely with the new president of FC Basel, Bernhard Burgener, for years: At the listed Highlight Event and Entertainment AG, Burgener was Chairman of the Board of Directors and Wagner was a member of the same.
Highlight boss Burgener had recently prevailed in the power struggle over the Constantin film company with the former chairman of the supervisory board, Dieter Hahn. Burgener's discreet group based in Pratteln BL markets, among other things, the European soccer association UEFA including the Champions League and the European Song Contest.
In 2011, Wagner also tried to buy the broadcasters TeleZüri, TeleBärn and the radio stations Radio 24 (Zurich) and Capital FM (Berne) from the Tamedia Group via the Burgener company Escor (slot machines) - unsuccessfully.
The aim here was to set up a joint advertising market pool with the electronic Basel media, such as Telebasel, Radio Baslisk and Radio Basel. Wagner was the owner of Radio Basilisk from 2007 to 2010. (SDA/hae)
