GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss Federal Tribunal has ordered a new trial for Abba Abacha, son of former Nigerian General Sani Abacha, who ruled the country for five years in the 1990s. He was suspected of stealing more than $2 billion and after his death his sons managed the money.
Abba Abacha was given a two-year suspended sentence in June 2010 by a Geneva court and his assets confiscated, under Switzerland’s programme covering stolen potentate funds. Nigeria had asked the Swiss government for judicial assistance in 1999 to recover the money.
The Swiss high court has ordered the new trial because Abacha was refused a visa and therefore could not attend the earlier trial in Geneva.
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.
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.
