A Zurich court earlier ordered the early release of Vitaly Kaloyev, convicted of murdering Nielsen in revenge for a 2002 air crash that killed his entire family, but the cantonal prosecutor appealed the ruling to the Federal Supreme Court, the highest court in Switzerland.
Kaloyev, a 50-year-old architect, was imprisoned in October 2005 after being found guilty of killing Nielsen in February 2004. Nielsen was on duty for the Swiss air traffic control company Skyguide when Kaloyev's wife and two children died in a plane crash in airspace controlled by the company over Germany.
In October 2005, Kaloyev was sentenced to eight years in prison, but on June 18, 2007, a Zurich court reduced the term to five years and three months, which the Zurich Cantonal chief prosecutor Ulrich Weder also appealed.
On July 19, Kaloyev filed a motion for early release, which was granted by the Zurich court August 15, and Kaloyev was to have been released August 24. However, Weder appealed and the ruling was overturned.
The fatal midair collision occurred in July 2002, when a Tupolev 154 airliner crashed into a Boeing 757 cargo plane over Lake Constance, in Germany, near the Swiss border.
All 69 people on board the plane flying from Bashkortostan in the Urals, including 45 children, were killed in the crash. The two pilots from the cargo plane were also killed.
