By Marlise Simon
New York Times
Posted: 01/01/2011 09:11:39 PM PST
Updated: 01/01/2011 09:11:42 PM PST
PARIS — The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor has confirmed reports that he told diplomats that his office had found evidence that President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan had a huge personal fortune skimmed from his country’s oil income and kept in foreign accounts.
The assertion was made known in a leaked diplomatic cable, first published in the British newspaper The Guardian in December, from the cache obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to some news organizations. In the cable, which included other discussion of Sudan, a U.S. diplomat at the United Nations wrote that the prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, had estimated that al-Bashir had a secret stash worth “possibly $9 billion.” Sudanese officials have dismissed the report.
In an interview since then, Moreno-Ocampo elaborated on the cable’s reference to the money. He said investigators in his office who specialize in tracking the financing of violence had been looking into al-Bashir’s finances for several years as part of the war-crimes case against him. He said they had found evidence that the president had a private fortune in secret accounts outside Sudan and was using intermediaries to conduct deals.
“The money comes from oil,” he said, “and he is doing business through third parties.” Moreno-Ocampo said it was too early to discuss specifics, including where the secret accounts or the investments were held, other than to rule out any banks in Britain. He said they were
in “several places, outside Sudan.”
“We shall clarify this later,” he said. “We are not ready to make requests to freeze the money.”
Absconding with Sudanese oil money — it accounts for more than 90 percent of the country’s foreign currency revenues — is not part of the charges the court can bring against Sudan’s president. He faces two international arrest warrants, one on charges of war crimes in Sudan’s province of Darfur, and a second one on charges of genocide against several Darfuri tribes.
But money-tracking frequently comes into war-crimes investigations, and Moreno-Ocampo said in the interview that it was part of his mandate to request the freezing of hidden money or property and later claim it for reparations to victims. A lawyer close to the work of the financial investigators said that the money trail was a crucial part of the prosecution’s case.