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SWISS RETURN PART OF 'LAFAYETTE' KICKBACKS TO TAIWAN

ROC Central News Agency

2007-06-14 11:35:36

    Geneva, June 13 (CNA) Swiss authorities Wednesday returned to Taiwan US$34 million in frozen bank deposits believed to be illicit kickbacks connected to the purchase of six Lafayette-class frigates from France in 1991, Swiss officials said.

    Officials at the Swiss Department of Justice said the returned funds belonged to two different holders but declined to identify them.

    The officials noted that according to Switzerland's Federal Act on International Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters, frozen capital assets can be released to foreign authorities if the assets are evidently related to criminal activities.

    The funds were handed over to Taiwanese authorities on the condition that the legal proceedings against the two concerned persons would comply with human rights principles, they said.

    The sum is part of a total of US$520 million that Taiwan has sought to recover from a number of frozen Swiss bank accounts belonging to several Taiwanese holders involved in the scandal, including fugitive arms broker Andrew Wang and members of his family, as well as former naval officer Kuo Li-heng and his brother Kuo Wen-tien.

    Proceedings for the retrieval of the remaining funds are still underway, the officials said.

    Wang, the French arms supplier Thompson-CSF's agent in Taiwan, fled the country following the death of Navy Capt. Yin Ching-feng under suspicious circumstances in late 1993. Yin is believed to have been poised to blow the whistle on colleagues who had allegedly received kickbacks from the Lafayette deal. Wang has been wanted by Taiwan authorities on a murder charge since September 2000.

    Concluding a second-phase investigation into the arms procurement scandal in September 2006, a special judicial panel in Taiwan indicted Wang and his wife, Yeh Hsiu-chen, as well as their four children and the Kuo brothers on charges of collecting illicit kickbacks from the Lafayette deal.

    According to the indictment, the Wangs opened more than 60 bank accounts in Europe and Asia to launder US$520 million in illicit gains from the deal.

    Taiwan began to seek legal assistance from the Swiss government in 2001 in an attempt to retrieve the funds frozen in several Swiss banks.

    Through a judicial aid agreement with Switzerland, Taiwan prosecutors managed to acquire a collection of bank files from a Swiss federal judge in November 2005. After nearly 10 months of close examination of the files, Taiwan petitioned in September 2006 for the return of US$520 million from a total of US$730 million frozen in the Swiss banks.

(By Y.C. Jou and Y.F. Low)

ENDITEM/Li