BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs confirmed to ATS and AP news agencies Sunday that the government has blocked more than CHF27 million in Syrian assets, although it has not confirmed if they belong to Bachar al-Assad, president. He and his brother are on a list of 23 persons whose assets were blocked earlier this year, with Swiss financial institutions required to report any assets to Bern.
The new figure, published by Zentralschweiz am Sonntag, brings to CHF1.2 billion the assets belonging to dictators and their entourages which have been frozen by Switzerland since January.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Thirty banks and financial institutions have reported and blocked some CHF80 million in assets belonging to former Tunisian dictator Ben Ali, Swiss federal police office spokesperson Danièle Bersier said Sunday. He confirmed to news agency ATS information that had appeared earlier in the day in Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung.
Ben Ali fled Tunisia 19 January and five days later the federal government issued an order to freeze assets belonging to him and 40 people in his entourage. The new Tunisian government will now need to request judicial assistance in order to start a court case to obtain the funds if they were obtained illegally.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland’s new law covering potentate funds, dictator’s assets frozen in Swiss banks, goes into effect 1 February 2011. The first beneficiary of what is called the Restitution of Illicit Assets Act is likely to be Haiti, which is scheduled to receive CHF6 million that have been frozen since Jean-Claude Duvalier, known as Baby Doc, fled the country in 1986.
Baby Doc’s surprising return to Haiti 17 January has provoked questions about why he would risk prosecution, and one of the suggestions put forward is that he hopes to keep the Swiss from returning money his family stashed in Swiss banks. The Duvaliers fought long and hard to force Switzerland to unfreeze their assets, saying these were legally gained. Baby Doc’s notoriously expensive lifestyle and divorce in France have sparked rumours that he is short of money.
Switzerland has struggled to keep the funds out of the Duvalier clan‘s hands for several years, cobbled by its own laws that said funds could be returned only if a country asks for judicial assistance once the dictator is gone. Haiti’s plight, a country too poor and disorganized to ask for help, underlined the shortcomings of the law.
The new law, passed in October 2010 (text), will, under certain circumstances, make it possible to return funds to a country that has not been able to follow the normal international legal path to demand their return.
Duvalier, whose motives for returning to Haiti remain a mystery, now faces charges of fraud and embezzlement.
Links to other sites: BBC, France24/AFP, New York Times
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland could soon have a law that would help avoid fiascos like the Duvalier funds legal case, where the Swiss have spent 23 years unsuccessfully trying to return to the people of Haiti money that was pocketed by the Duvalier family dictators. Switzerland has, in the past 15 years, returned more than CHF1.7 billion in such stolen dictators’ funds to other countries – the only country to do so.
If Parliament passes the law soon after the consultation period ends, it could be used to return some CHF6 million to Haiti. The assets have been frozen since 1986.
The Swiss Federal Council Wednesday 24 February opened for consultation a proposed law on “the restitution of illicit assets”, to ensure that Switzerland’s hands are not tied if a state is unable to conduct national criminal procedures against its own former leaders. The consultation, open to cantons, political, legal and business groups who have an interest in the change of law, closes 16 April 2010.
Problems in the cases of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and former leader Mobutu as well as Haiti and the Duvalier assets, prompted the government to decide in early 2009 that Swiss law would need to change, a process that has taken nearly a year.
Swiss high court ruling on Haitian ex-dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier’s money will lead to new law
Talloires, France, near Geneva, where the Duvaliers fled after leaving Haiti in 1986 (photo: Talloires Tourisme)
Update (links added) 23:30 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss government Wednesday morning 3 February took the unusual step of freezing funds in a bank account once held by Haiti’s former dictator, Jean-Claude Duvalier, based on a special cases clause in the Swiss constitution. At the same time the Swiss supreme court published its ruling on the frozen assets, saying that they cannot be returned to the Haitian people as mandated by the Swiss Office of Justice in 2009. The court decision has prompted the Swiss Federal Council to freeze the funds long enough to pass a law that will help it avoid releasing the assets “for the benefit of the Duvalier clan, which the Federal Criminal Court deems to be a criminal organization.”
A new law would allow the Swiss parliament input on how to best return the money to Haiti.
The ruling Federal Council is asking the Foreign Affairs Department to “complete by the end of the month its work on drafting a federal law that would ultimately allow such assets to be confiscated, and to submit the draft law for consultation.” A spokesperson for the Federal Foreign Affairs Office told GenevaLunch that the law is likely to be passed in 2010. It will cover similar situations of confiscated assets, several of which have come up in recent years.
Switzerland is the only country in the past 20 years to have returned stolen “potentates” funds to the countries previously ruled by the dictators: more than CHF1.6 billion has been returned to Peru, the Philippines and Nigeria among others.
The Duvalier family has been fighting to obtain access to $5.7 million sitting in Swiss bank accounts since they were frozen in 1986, when the Haitian government made a first request for assistance to obtain what it said were stolen funds. Jean-Claude Duvalier, popularly known as Baby Doc, ruled Haiti starting in 1971, when at age 19 he became the world’s then-youngest ruler. His father, known as Papa Doc, had ruled it for the previous 13 year.
