Swiss Freeze Gadhafi Assets

[The Zack]

Swiss Freeze Gadhafi's Assets

 

ZURICH—The Swiss government ordered the country's banks to block any assets belonging to the regime of Col. Moammar Gadhafi, marking Bern's fourth such freeze in the last month involving assets that may belong to African and Middle Eastern leaders.

 

The freeze takes immediate effect and lasts for three years. It is designed to give the banks time to search for any deposits by Col. Gadhafi, members of his family and certain government ministers. The blocking order includes real estate and luxury goods and covers 29 people, including Col. Gadhafi's wife and children, a number of relatives of his wife and six government officials.

 

Switzerland, long considered a safe haven for illicit assets deposited by corrupt leaders and strongmen, has moved swiftly over the last month to block assets of leaders of the Ivory Coast, Tunisia and Egypt. It ordered a freeze of any assets belonging to the regimes of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and former Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, as well as Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo, who has refused to step down after an election which the outside world says he lost.

 

Mr. Gadhafi's regime is believed to have large assets around the world. Libya's sovereign wealth fund, the Libyan Investment Authority, has significant cash and other assets in the U.S. and the U.K., according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Jan. 28, 2010, was made public by document-leaking website WikiLeaks and details discussions between the wealth fund's head and the U.S. ambassador in Tripoli.

 

The wealth fund has $32 billion in cash and several U.S. banks each manage up to $500 million, according to the cable. It added that the fund's primary investments are in London, in banking and residential and commercial real estate.

 

However, it is not clear how much Libyan money remains in Switzerland following a long-running diplomatic spat that started in July 2008 when Swiss police arrested Col. Gadhafi's son, Hannibal, on allegations that he and his wife beat their servants in a luxury Geneva hotel. Authorities later dropped the inquiry, but the arrest set off a bitter dispute in which the Libyan government said it was withdrawing all assets from Swiss banks.

 

Tripoli also arrested two Swiss businessmen on immigration charges and held them for more than a year. During the row, Col. Gadhafi called on the international community to split Switzerland in three and hand the country over to France, Italy and Germany and also declared a holy war on the Alpine nation.