While Nguema Obiang, who wasn’t present for Friday’s verdict, already reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department in 2014, Swiss prosecutors said last year that their investigation is still at a preliminary stage.
William Bourdon, a lawyer for Transparency International, which was at the origin of the French case by lodging a complaint in 2008 to request the start of a criminal probe into suspicions of ill-gotten gains, said the verdict was “historic.”
“The court clearly states that the counts of laundering were made possible because of a form of tolerance at three levels,” he said in reference to Societe Generale, the French central bank and French authorities. “It’s an unprecedented and global message the court is sending to kleptocrats. It is the beginning of the end for this rule of impunity and immunity that these kleptocrats imagined was eternal and universal.”
Judge de Perthuis sought to fend off criticism that the ruling exceeds France’s jurisdiction.
“We aren’t passing judgment on events that took place in Equatorial Guinea. The money laundering took place in France,” she said, adding that the total amounts laundered are evaluated at about 150 million euros. “Given its transnational character, money laundering calls upon a worldwide clampdown.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.