 |
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in 2011. Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images |
A Swiss prosecutor is probing whether the late Saudi king broke any laws when he transferred $100 million to a fund controlled by fellow royal Juan Carlos I of Spain in 2008.
Last month, a hearing was held behind closed doors in Geneva to discuss a legal opinion that prosecutor Yves Bertossa sought from scholars on whether the payment by the late King Abdullah could constitute a crime under Saudi law, according to documents seen by Bloomberg. Bertossa first solicited the advice in a July 23 letter to the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law.
Bertossa’s request for an opinion came just a month after Spanish Supreme Court prosecutors announced they would investigate whether Juan Carlos, who abdicated and lost his immunity from prosecution in 2014, could be pursued for possible crimes linked to a high-speed train project in Saudi Arabia won by a Spanish-Saudi consortium.
Bertossa’s scrutiny of King Abdullah, the half-brother of the current king, could roil Switzerland’s longstanding role as a preferred destination for Saudi wealth. Middle Eastern investors had 432 billion Swiss francs ($464 billion) stored in the country at the end of 2019, according to the Swiss Bankers Association, nearly a fifth of the total. Saudis flock to Geneva every July and August to avoid the fierce desert heat, staying in luxury villas along Lake Geneva.
No comments:
Post a Comment