The quiet world of Swiss banking was stunned today when a disgruntled banker shot dead his two bosses before turning the gun on himself.
Zurich police said the 56-year-old financial adviser walked into a downtown building of Zuercher Kantonalbank this morning and shot his two supervisors at point-blank range with a pistol.
The gunman, a father of two, then walked to his own office one floor up where he shot and killed himself.
The two victims, aged 41 and 45, later died in hospital of serious head injuries.
"One has to assume this was a conflict at work, which came to a head over the past days or weeks," a police spokesman said.
Some 80 employees working in the building were evacuated after the shooting and the area was cordoned off for several hours.
Shootings are rare in Switzerland, despite the country's liberal gun laws which allow all men who have served in the Swiss militia army to keep their service weapon at home.
In September 2001, in the country's worst-ever shooting, a lone 57-year-old gunman with a grudge stormed the local assembly in the central Swiss city of Zug and killed 14 people before shooting himself.