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Switzerland Freezes Money Allegedly Linked to France-Taiwan Arms Deal
A local senior judicial official said Tuesday that Switzerland has frozen some 800 million Swiss Francs (445 million U.S. dollars) in bank accounts suspected to be bribes allegedly offered by a French company for the 1991 sale of warships to Taiwan.
Geneva's chief prosecutor Bernard Bertossa said the money in Swiss bank accounts consists of bulk of the bribes, and that there are also accounts frozen in Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.
France is investigating allegations that money was channeled from the former state-owned energy group, Elf Aquitaine, now part of Total Fina Elf, to help another French firm Thomson-CSF, now called Thales, to secure a controversial contract to sell Taiwan six Lafayette frigates in 1991.
Last month, former French foreign minister Roland Dumas was convicted of corruption for illegally taking gifts from Elf.
Bertossa's comments came after the Saturday edition of French-Swiss newspaper Le Temps reported that 400 million Swiss Francs (222.5 million dollars) had been frozen in connection with the inquiry led by Geneva investigating magistrate Paul Perraudin.
However, Bertossa did not disclose names of the banks in several Swiss cantons where suspected accounts are blocked.
Last May, Credit Suisse Group said it had frozen more than 250 million Swiss Francs (139 million dollars) in deposits it thought were linked to the warship sale.
On Friday, a Liechtenstein court froze nearly 33 million dollars in accounts on the same ground.
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