Swiss unable to stomach lurid tale of ambassador

Switzerland recalled its ambassador to Germany yesterday, deciding that scandalous headlines about him and a nude model prevented him from keeping his job.

The summons from Berne means Thomas Borer, Switzerland's best-known diplomat, has to leave Berlin, where he and his Texan beauty queen wife, Shawne Fielding, had thoroughly shaken up Switzerland's staid image.

Mr Borer, 44, was pictured in the weekly tabloid SonntagsBlick emerging from the Berlin embassy with the 34-year-old model while his wife was away. The woman, who at first said the ambassador was comforting her after a relationship break-up, later claimed to have had sex with him.

Mr Borer denied the allegation, but Joseph Deiss, the Swiss Foreign Minister, called him home after a cabinet meeting decided he could no longer do his job with the necessary dignity and credibility.

Mr Deiss broke the news on Tuesday to Mr Borer, who is said to have refused the chance to take up a new posting.

Ms Fielding has also raised many eyebrows during her time in Berlin. She had to apologise to Mr Deiss last year after she posed for pictures in a tight mini-skirt on the embassy roof and also draped over a horse in the entrance hall.

She was also photographed wearing the Stars and Stripes while brandishing toy six-guns with a dollar-sign emblazoned on her cleavage.