Switzerland has frozen LE2.8 billion of funds owned by former president Mubarak and 14 of his family members and aides and it is now the turn of local authorities to prove the illegal nature of these funds to regain them back. Sherine Abdel-Razek listens to Swiss officials talking about the expected fate of those assets On 11 February, the day Hosni Mubarak resigned and prior to any official request from the Egyptian side, Switzerland froze 410 million Swiss francs (LE2.8 billion) that belonged to Mubarak and people in his close circle. Furthermore, it is now helping the local authorities to trace any suspicious transfers of money from Cairo to Swiss banks during the days that preceded the resignation, according to Dominik Furgler, the Swiss ambassador to Egypt. The freezing aimed at preventing any plans to withdraw and hide those assets before the Egyptian authorities had the time to initiate the necessary criminal procedures. However, "the freezing does not demonstrate the legal or illegal origin of this money and it is now up to the Egyptian authorities to provide the Swiss with proofs that it was illicitly required to return it back as Switzerland does not want to keep illegally acquired money," he said. Furgler was talking in a press conference held yesterday morning, hours after a Swiss delegation met with relevant Egyptian judicial authorities to assist them in establishing mutual legal assistance procedures to get the money back. Pascal Gossin, head of mutual assistance unit in the Swiss Federal Office of Justice, noted that Egypt submitted a request for mutual legal assistance from Switzerland late March and the Swiss side asked for clarifications related to proofs of the misconduct of some people and got some answers that they haven't had time to study because it was received only last week. "We need proofs from the Egyptian government to make sure of the illegal nature of the assets," he said, stressing that this procedure is based on the role of law and is going to take some time. "By time we don't mean days or weeks but longer because of [procedures] in Cairo and Switzerland " Furgler said his country had similar experiences with a number of ousted regimes like those in Haiti, the Philippines and Zimbabwe where frozen funds were restituted to those countries. "Egypt will get up to 100 per cent of the frozen money in case it proves its illegality," pointing out that the deal between Egypt and Switzerland stipulates that this will not take more than three years. He noted that illegally proven funds will be returned back even if the official who owned it dies. "President Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of the Congo died shortly after his resignation and we returned the money back to his country." Meanwhile, "Egypt has opened cases for more people with funds in Switzerland and it asked for our assistance concerning details about those as well," so there might be more people added to the list soon, Furgler added. Switzerland is reputed to be upholding secret bank accounts and is thus considered a good place for dictators to deposit stolen funds. "This is only in James Bond movies, there is nothing like secret accounts in Swiss banks. In addition, the judge can ask any bank to reveal any kind of information concerning any account."
