39435: (news) Chamberlain: Switzerland to return funds from Haiti's Baby Doc (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Laura MacInnis

     GENEVA, May 22 (Reuters) - Switzerland is set to return 7.6 million
Swiss francs ($6.2 million) next month which it seized in accounts
belonging to former Haitian ruler Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, a senior
Swiss official said on Tuesday.
     Under an agreement proposed by Switzerland, a large portion of the
frozen funds would be given to Haiti for humanitarian projects but the rest
will be given back to the former dictator, exiled in France, and his
family.
     The funds, blocked since Duvalier was ousted in 1986, will be released
on June 3 unless the government in Haiti produces last-minute evidence
tying the money to corruption or crime, said Paul Seger, legal adviser at
the Swiss Foreign Ministry.
     "There is a glimpse of hope that we will find some kind of miracle
solution before that date," Seger told Reuters in a telephone interview,
noting Haitian investigators have promised to intensify their efforts as
the deadline approaches.
     "The settlement will foresee that the majority of the money will be
used for projects of a humanitarian and social nature in Haiti," Seger
said, declining to specify the amount until the deal is signed.
     Over the past 20 years, Switzerland has returned nearly $1.3 billion
in loot stashed by Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, Peru's former
spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos and Nigeria's leader General Sani Abacha to
their homelands.
     Legal and practical hurdles have so far prevented such a resolution in
Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, where authorities failed to
gather adequate legal proof that the Duvalier fortune was ill-gotten.
     Similar issues have also ground proceedings to a halt in the case of 8
million Swiss francs ($6.49 million) belonging to the late Zairean
strongman Mobutu Sese Seko, held since 1997.
     Authorities in the country -- now the Democratic Republic of the Congo
-- have not yet produced evidence that the funds were illicit. Swiss law
requires the funds to be released by the end of 2008 if no resolution is
reached in the case.
     "We will have a bit of time," Seger said.
     Judicial experts argue that poor countries, particularly those with
institutions ravaged by war and unrest, need legal assistance to recover
money stashed abroad by corrupt leaders.
     Switzerland has argued for faster global implementation of a U.N.
anti-corruption convention that criminalises bribery, money laundering and
the embezzlement of public funds. The pact obliges countries to return
illegally acquired assets.



 REUTERS