Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Some CHF8 million in Swiss bank accounts must be released to the family of former Congo (Zaire) leader Mobutu Sese Seko, the Swiss penal court in Bellinzona, Ticino has ruled. The accounts were ordered to be frozen by the Swiss government and on request from the new government of the DR Congo after Mobutu’s death in 1997, the only money from illegal sources that could be traced. Mobutu, who ruled as a dictator for 32 years, was famous for his expensive lifestyle, which contrasted sharply with the extreme poverty of his country.

Micheline Calmy-Rey, who was then president of Switzerland, met with DR Congo leader Joseph Kabila in July 2007 and asked him to apply for the return of the money before the statute of limitations ran out, but Kabila was reported at the time to be disappointed at the size of the amount and action was not taken immediately.

The Swiss federal high court in Lausanne ruled in June 2008 that unless the government of the DR Congo, the country Mobutu had renamed Zaire, applied for the funds to be returned to the people of the country by December 2008, the assets would have to be unfrozen due to the statute of limitations. That ruling was supported in April 2009 by a ruling by the Swiss prosecutor’s office, which said the money would have to be returned. A last-ditch legal effort, a people’s case brought by Basel-based lawyer Mark Pieth to extend the freeze has now failed.

The Swiss government has been keen to avoid a situation similar to one in which the money put in Swiss bank accounts by Haiti’s former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier had to be returned to his family when the five-year statute of limitations ran out in September 2007, but it appears to have failed. In that case, the family of Duvalier claimed the money had never been his. The Haitian government appears to have been too weak to pursue the case.

In the DR Congo, political agreements between the Kabila and Mobutu clans, in a country rife with corruption and continuing warfare, may have played a role in the reluctance to pursue the money, argued Africa’s Inter Press News Agency in Johannesburg, South Africa, in June 2008.

Ed. note: Swissinfo reports that Pieth was trying to extend the freeze on CHF7.7 million but Swiss courts earlier used a figure of CHF8.3m and the cause of the discrepancy is unclear, although it could be based on changes in exchange rates.

Related: BBC, Swissinfo

Background:

• “Switzerland wants to return Mobutu money quickly to DR Congo”, 18 July 2007, GenevaLunch
• “Ill-gotten gains are not safe in Swiss banks”, 20 February 2009, Swissinfo

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