Twenty-three years after “Baby Doc” Duvalier was forced out of power in Haiti,a court in Lausanne, Switzerland will decide whether the kleptocratic dictator can finally get his hands on 7m Swiss francs (£4.2m) that has been frozen in a Swiss bank account since 1986. Haiti’s government has requested a “mutual legal assistance proceeding”, asking the Swiss to confiscate the assets – and the drawn-out process should reach its final stage before Christmas, in the Swiss supreme court. “The aim for the Haitian government is to say, ‘Look, it doesn’t pay in the end’,” says Valentin Zellweger, deputy director of Switzerland’s Directorate of Public International Law, who has been pursuing the case. “We had excellent co-operation with the Haitian government: it was this which allowed us to go as far as we did.”
The Duvalier family assets were squirrelled away in a vehicle called the Brouilly Foundation, with connections to Liechtenstein and Panama, and Baby Doc and his relations have fought hard to get their hands on the cash, most recently appealing to the Swiss supreme court. The court is expected to rule on whether the funds can finally be released back into the hands of the Haitian people. Adrian Fozzard, who heads the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (Star), a joint initiative between the UN and the World Bank, says Duvalier is one of a small but growing band of ex-leaders who are discovering that, even decades after they are forced from power, the fruits of their plunder can still be confiscated. “The idea of going after the proceeds of corruption is relatively new, but there is a general sense that the tools are gradually being put in place,” he says.
The Swiss experience shows that the process can take years of dogged pursuit. Haiti was ready to give up on the Duvalier assets in 2007, until the Swiss announced they had no choice but to unfreeze the funds. That caused a public outcry in Haiti, and provoked a renewed commitment from the government there not to let the case drop.
For more from the original report go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/nov/22/dictators-stolen-asset-recovery-initiative-haiti
