Switzerland extends freeze on ex-Haitian dictators assets
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| Published on Saturday, June 2, 2007 |
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GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP): Switzerland decided on Friday to extend a freeze on some 7.6 million Swiss francs (4.6 million euros, 6.2 million dollars) held by Haiti's former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier in Swiss banks, a government spokesman said.
spokesman Oswald Sigg told the Swiss news agency ATS that the extension would take effect on Sunday, when the previous sequestration order was due to end.
The move followed a legal appeal earlier this week by lawyers acting for two former victims of the Duvalier regime, Swiss foreign ministry spokesman Lars Knuchel said.
A senior legal official at the ministry had warned last week that the Duvalier family was set to recover the assets on June 3, claiming that the freeze would be allowed to lapse under legally imposed time limits.
The money has been caught up in nearly two decades of legal and political wrangling since it was blocked in Switzerland at the request of Haiti's government after Duvalier was toppled in 1986.
"Baby Doc" Duvalier and his followers have been accused by Haiti's new government of siphoning off state funds during their reign.
But Haitian authorities have so far failed to put together a legal case before Swiss courts to retrieve the money.
On Wednesday, a court in Geneva ordered an extended freeze on one of the accounts after a Haitian priest and a taxi driver who were persecuted under the Duvalier regime applied for an injunction.
Their lawyers warned that other accounts were out of their reach and had urged federal authorities to extend their blanket decree on all Duvalier assets.
Attorneys Marc Henzelin and his colleague Patrice Le Houelleur on Friday welcomed the government move.
"We hope this wiil allow other victims of the regime to come forward and exercise their rights," they said in a statement.
Their two Haitian clients are trying to have a 1988 US court ruling, which ordered the Duvaliers to pay them 1.75 million dollars in damages, recognised in Switzerland.
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