Day: April 13, 2022

Swiss prosecutors will not file any charges after concluding a decade-long investigation into alleged money laundering and organized crime linked to late former President Hosni Mubarak’s circles in Egypt, and will release some 400 million Swiss francs ($430 million) frozen in Swiss banks.

The office of the Swiss attorney general said Wednesday that information received as part of cooperation with Egyptian authorities wasn’t sufficient to back up the claims that emerged in the wake of Arab Spring uprisings in 2011 that felled Mubarak’s three-decade rule.

A Swiss investigation into claims that banks in Switzerland were used to squirrel away ill-gotten funds had originally targeted 14 people, including Mubarak’s two sons, as well as dozens of other individuals and entities that had assets totaling some 600 million francs frozen.

More than 210 million francs were already released in an earlier phase of the case, which also could not substantiate the allegations, and Wednesday’s announcement means about 400 million more will be “released and returned to their beneficial owners,” the attorney-general’s office said.

The final part of the Swiss investigation centered on five people, it said, without identifying them.

Mubarak’s sons, Alaa and Gamal, hailed the decision as a full exoneration.

According to a statement sent to The Associated Press by the family’s representatives at Portland, a London-based communications firm, Gamal Mubarak said the decision “validates the position we have held all along” following more than a decade of “intrusive investigations, sanctions and mutual legal assistance proceedings.”

“The decision marks an important step in our efforts to assert our rights and prove our innocence from the flagrantly false allegations leveled against us over the past 11 years,” he said.

Swiss prosecutors say they didn’t receive a response to a request for information from “commissions” created in Egypt to analyze financial transfers connected to people under investigation in Egypt — notably the Mubarak family, the office said. Mubarak died in 2020, aged 91.

“As a result, in the absence of evidence relating to potential offenses committed in particular in Egypt, it is not possible to show that the funds located in Switzerland could be of illegal origin,” it said. “The suspicion of money laundering cannot therefore be substantiated based on the information available.”

Swiss banks, reputed for their discretion, have been a favored repository over the years for many wealthy foreigners — including Western industrial tycoons, Russian oligarchs, and autocrats and other leaders and their families and cronies in places as diverse as Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Swiss authorities have touted a recent crackdown against money laundering through Swiss banks, but advocacy groups and watchdogs say the effort has not succeeded in completely ending such activities.

Source: Voice of America

Police in Somalia’s breakaway Somaliland region arrested at least seven journalists Wednesday, including a VOA reporter, as they covered a prison scuffle in the region’s capital, Hargeisa.

VOA Somali stringer Sagal Mustafe Hassan was freed after a short detention, but the other journalists remained in custody at Hargeisa’s central police station.

Among the journalists arrested were BBC reporter Hassan Gallaydh, local MM TV journalist Mohamed Ilig and Ahmed Mohamud Yusuf of Saab TV.

Authorities did not say why the journalists were arrested. Colleagues and family members told VOA that some of them were broadcasting live at the time of their arrest outside the prison, where about 150 criminal and terror convicts are held.

“There are people who misinformed the public about the small incident that happened at the prison. We hold them accountable, and we will not allow such people to go unpunished,” said the commander-in-chief of the Somaliland Custodial Corps, Brigadier General Ahmed Awale Yusuf, in a news conference following the incident.

On March 18, gunmen later identified as members of the intelligence services attacked three journalists riding in a car in Hargeisa and kidnapped one of them, freelance online journalist Abdisalan Ahmed Awad.

On Monday, The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called for the release of Abdisalan, who remains in custody.

“Authorities in the breakaway region of Somaliland should unconditionally release freelance online journalist Abdisalan Ahmed Awad and hold the intelligence officers who harassed and assaulted him and two other journalists responsible,” CPJ said.

Somaliland is a breakaway republic from Somalia that has not won international recognition since it declared its cessation from Somalia in 1991, following the ousting of the Siyad Barre regime.

In an interview with VOA Somali, during a visit in Washington in March, Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi said he has secured pledges of increased U.S. support for his self-declared state.

Even as formal recognition remains off the table for the time being, he urged the international community to recognize his territory’s quest for independence, saying negotiations with Somalia had failed.

Unlike southern Somalia, Somaliland has been enjoying relative peace, has its own military and police money, and has received credit for holding democratic elections, but rights groups often accuse Somaliland authorities of being hostile toward journalists.

Source: Voice of America

The special U.S. envoy to the Horn of Africa is reportedly stepping away from the post with the region engulfed in political and humanitarian crises.

David Satterfield is resigning just three months after his appointment, according to unnamed current and former officials who spoke to Foreign Policy magazine. Satterfield replaced veteran U.S. diplomat Jeffrey Feltman, who served as special envoy to the Horn of Africa for less than a year on the job. The magazine said Deputy Special Envoy Payton Knopf will take over the role on an interim basis.

The special U.S. envoy to the crisis-engulfed Horn of Africa is reportedly stepping away from his post just three months after his appointment.

David Satterfield is set to resign, according to unnamed current and former officials who spoke to Foreign Policy magazine. Satterfield replaced veteran U.S. diplomat Jeffrey Feltman, who served as special envoy to the Horn of Africa for less than a year.

The magazine said Deputy Special Envoy Payton Knopf will take over the role on an interim basis.

The magazine said a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department refused to confirm Satterfield’s departure or say why he would step down.

Satterfield and Knopf are scheduled to arrive in Ethiopia April 13 for meetings with Ethiopian government officials and representatives of humanitarian organizations, according to the State Department.

“Their visit continues U.S. efforts towards ceasing hostilities, unhindered humanitarian access, transparent investigations into human rights abuses and violations by all actors, and a negotiated resolution to the conflict in Ethiopia,” said a spokesperson.

Satterfield has been trying to negotiate an agreement between the Ethiopian government and forces with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front to end a conflict that began in late 2020 and has since exploded into a civil war that has forced 2 million people from their homes.

Earlier this week, a joint report from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said newly appointed officials in Tigray and the neighboring Amhara region, acting with the acquiescence and possible participation of Ethiopian federal forces, systematically expelled several hundred thousand Tigrayan civilians from their homes using threats, unlawful killings, sexual violence, mass detention, pillage, forcible transfer, and the denial of humanitarian assistance.

“In Ethiopia, all parties to the country’s conflict, as well as Eritrean forces, have committed atrocities, and thousands of Ethiopians are being unjustly detained in life-threatening conditions,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken Tuesday during the release of the State Department’s 2021 annual human rights report.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s neighbor in the Horn, Somalia, is dealing with severe drought that has left millions hungry, with parts of the country on the verge of famine.

Source: Voice of America