Swiss right-wing party goat mascot missing, feared dead

Zottel the Goat, the mascot of the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP), went missing a week before federal polls and is feared dead, Swiss media said on Monday. Zottel and his "girlfriend" Mimo disappeared from their stables in the canton of Zurich early on Saturday. A police search for them began almost immediately, but has yielded no results so far. Ernst Schibli, a Swiss MP who took care of Zottel, said the mascot received an anonymous letter with death threats to "fascist Goat Zottel" this summer. The radical left movement, Antifaschistische Aktion, claimed responsibility for the kidnapping in an online statement. SVP, in its turn, issued a statement demanding the kidnappers to immediately return the animal to its owners. The Swiss People's Party made headlines in 2007, when it won elections with 28.9% of the vote. Zottel became a key figure in the campaign, partly due to his appearance in online flash games, in which he expelled illegal migrants out of the country, prevented them from getting Swiss citizenship and fired a crossbow at European officials "seeking to steal money from Swiss taxpayers." SVP, a party behind the controversial minaret construction ban, expected to score record 30% of the vote in this year's elections.