Swiss Authorities Extend Freeze on Former Dictator's Funds

Chris Owen

23 August 2007

Swiss bank accounts linked to former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier will remain blocked for a further year, following a decision of the seven-member Swiss Cabinet in Bern. The accounts, which were due to be released to Duvalier's family at the end of August, contain SFr7.6 million that is alleged to have been stolen from public funds before Mr Duvalier was ousted in 1986. The former dictator, now living in exile in France, denies the claim. Lawyers for victims of the Duvalier regime are trying to prevent his family from gaining access to the money, but the Haitian government has yet to prove that the money was of criminal origin, a necessary step for its confiscation in Switzerland. The Swiss government agreed in June to a limited, three-month extension of the freeze, first imposed in 2002, pending further negotiations with the Duvalier family and to prevent any of the funds being returned to them through offshore trusts and companies controlled by them. Switzerland's supreme court ruled last year that an indefinite freeze on privately owned funds was unconstitutional. The case involved SFr8 million deposited in Swiss banks by the former Zairean President Mobutu Sese Seko.