ROME, Feb 18 (Hina/AR) - The chief prosecutor with the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague (ICTY) will present evidence against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to prove that he financed Serb paramilitary units through
secret accounts, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera says on Monday. Chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte has received documents forwarded by Greek judicial bodies from Athens, confirming the existence of 250 accounts leading to Milosevic and his clan in Greek and Cypriot bank branches, the daily claims. It alleges the accounts were used in 1992-6 to avoid embargo and finance military operations in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. This financial manoeuvring, which enabled a narrow oligarchy to safely put away US$12 million, included some stages which del Ponte has ignored, Corriere della Sera says. One of these, for example, is Lugano, where attorney Mario Borrado
ROME, Feb 18 (Hina/AR) - The chief prosecutor with the UN war crimes
tribunal at The Hague (ICTY) will present evidence against former
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to prove that he financed
Serb paramilitary units through secret accounts, the Italian
newspaper Corriere della Sera says on Monday.
Chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte has received documents forwarded
by Greek judicial bodies from Athens, confirming the existence of
250 accounts leading to Milosevic and his clan in Greek and Cypriot
bank branches, the daily claims.
It alleges the accounts were used in 1992-6 to avoid embargo and
finance military operations in Croatia and Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
This financial manoeuvring, which enabled a narrow oligarchy to
safely put away US$12 million, included some stages which del Ponte
has ignored, Corriere della Sera says.
One of these, for example, is Lugano, where attorney Mario
Borradori manages a Banca del Gottardo account numbered
3093/230/102, made on the name of Sarmos, a society from
Liechtenstein. An investigation into weapon smuggling, however,
has established that this account was a financial resource of
Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader after whom the Hague
tribunal has issued an arrest warrant.
The Italian daily mentions other money routes and accounts linked
with Milosevic, currently on trial before the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), for example in
Geneva and Zurich.
One account was allegedly opened in the Trieste-based New Credit
Bank, on which Karadic allegedly deposited DM17 million in 1997. A
probe has been launched in the Italian seaport but has not been
completed yet, Corriere della Sera says.
(hina) ha