《TAIPEI TIMES》 Switzerland restitutes US$266m seized in graft case
This photo taken on January 26, 2010 shows a Taiwan frogman standing in front of two French made Lafayette class frigates at the Tsaoying naval base in southern Kaohsiung. Taiwan vowed to get hundreds of millions of US dollars from a French defence group Thales on May 4, 2010 in a long-running dispute over a 1991 warship sale in a ruling it called "belated justice." Photo: AFP
/ AFP, GENEVA, Switzerland
Switzerland yesterday said that it would restitute to Taiwan nearly one-third of the US$900 million it confiscated over corruption allegations linked to a controversial French frigates sale to Taipei three decades ago.
“In the frigates case, Switzerland will restitute nearly US$266 million to Taiwan,” the Swiss Department of Justice and Police said in a statement.
The money, it said, “was illegal commissions” paid during a US$2.8 billion deal to buy six Lafayette-class frigates in 1991.
That deal, which strained French ties with China at the time, was later found to have been awash with hundreds of millions in bribes.
In 2001, Taiwan requested judicial assistance from Switzerland in the expansive corruption case, since much of the ill-gotten money was residing in Swiss bank accounts.
Switzerland had seized about US$900 million “as a preventive measure,” and in 2005 handed Taiwan numerous documents linked to the accounts.
Two years later, Switzerland restituted a first tranche of US$34 million to Taiwan.
Yesterday, the department said that a ruling by a Taiwanese court in late 2019, “confirming the illegal provenance of the funds and ordering their confiscation, opens the door to restitution” of another US$266 million.
However, Switzerland said that the ruling has not “proven that the other blocked funds resulted from corruption, and the sequestration affecting them will be lifted.”
新聞來源:TAIPEI TIMES
《TAIPEI TIMES》 CECC outlines path to vaccines from COVAX
上一則新聞:《TAIPEI TIMES》 US warship sails through Strait, first under Biden
-
《TAIPEI TIMES》US lawmakers urge better cooperation
-
《TAIPEI TIMES》Latest round of Taiwan-US trade talks completed
-
《TAIPEI TIMES》IOC should call Taiwan by its name: US lawmakers
-
《TAIPEI TIMES》KMT and TPP lawmakers vote against DPP proposal
-
《TAIPEI TIMES》Defense mission and AIT ink service deal
-
《TAIPEI TIMES》Researchers crack black mosquito code
-
《TAIPEI TIMES》Nation’s AI dialogue engine highlighted
-
《TAIPEI TIMES》Nude painting partially censored
焦點今日熱門