Swiss authorities convict Abacha’s son, seize $350m assets

Swiss authorities yesterday convicted Abba, one of the sons of the late military dictator, General Sani Abacha, for graft and ordered $350 million worth of assets to be seized from him.

"The first order of the sentence issued yesterday by the examining magistrate found that Abba Abacha, born November 9, 1968, son of the late General Sani Abacha, was guilty of participation in a criminal organisation," Geneva Canton's justice office said in a statement.

It said the examining magistrate sentenced Abba to a suspended jail term and ordered the confiscation of his assets worth $350 million “which is held by his criminal organisation and seized through international assistance in Luxembourg and the Bahamas.”

Agency reports say the court was not immediately available for comment on the duration of Abba’s suspended jail sentence.

In yesterday's statement, the Swiss authorities also said they had convicted a financial intermediary who is currently domiciled in the Principality of Monaco, for having been part of the “criminal organisation” run by the Abacha clan.

The person, who was not named, has been sentenced to pay an unspecified fine.

“The person has also been ordered to pay the Canton of Geneva 10 million Swiss Francs -- which corresponds to illegal gains obtained from these culpable activities," added the statement.

General Abacha, who died in June 1998, is suspected of having siphoned over $3 billion from Nige-rian between his coming to power in November 1993 and his death four-and-a-half years later.

Some $700 million of his loot, which was stashed in Swiss banks, have since been returned by Switzerland to Nigerian authorities.

The General Abdulsalami Abubakar and later, Olusegun Obasanjo regime had put pressure on the Swiss government in a bid to recover an estimated $3 billion in embezzled state funds sent abroad by Abacha during his four and half-year rule.

Abacha used a circle of family members, close aides and business associates to transfer the loot.

At Nigeria's request, Switzerland froze hundreds of millions of dollars held there, as have Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.

Between 1999 and 2007, the Obasanjo government succeeded in recovering about $700 million of the looted money from the Swiss government.

Recently, several leading banks in Switzerland have been criticised by the country's regulators for accepting money from the Abacha family

In a 2002 report, the Swiss Federal Banking Commission said 19 banks had dealings with Abacha and did not report suspicions of money laundering to the Swiss authorities.

Six banks - three branches of Crédit Suisse Plus, Crédit Agricole Indosuez, Union Bancaire Privée and MM Warburg - were singled out for failing to run adequate checks on new accounts, including those opened by General Abacha's two sons.

“The mere fact that significant assets of dubious origin, from people close to former Nigerian President Sani Abacha, were deposited at Swiss banks is highly unsatisfactory and damages the image of Switzerland as a financial centre,” Banking Commission chairman Kurt Hauri said in 2002 after a 10-month investigation.

The commission said that almost a third of the Abacha money deposited with Swiss banks had first been banked in the UK, United States and Austria.