Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1472276
14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 3 JULY 2022 NEWS OVER €96 million in money held by Bank of Valletta by the heirs of the late son of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, will have to be disbursed in favour of the Libyan State, af- ter an eight-year court case in Malta came to an end this week with a decision in favour of the plaintiff, the Libyan Attorney General. Gaddafi's millions were his- torically managed by the for- mer Labour Party treasurer Joe Sammut, an accountant who had been facing proceedings in court for creating companies with false stock to secure resi- dence permits for Libyan busi- nessmen in Malta. The cash funded Muatassim Gaddafi's playboy lifestyle, with millions held in his vari- ous American Express and Visa credit card accounts. The three accounts at Bank of Valletta were held in the name of Mezen Ltd and Capital Re- sources, companies owned by Gaddafi, but who appeared on company documents under the name Muatasimbllah Muam- mar Abuminyar. Muatassim, 36, who held the rank of Brigadier in his private army, died in a Libyan hospital on 20 October 2011, after being captured by rebels during the fall of Sirte. The Libyan Attorney General had also accused Bank of Vallet- ta of violating know-your-cus- tomer rules that should have prevented it from opening an account for Gaddafi in the first place. The Libyan Attorney Gener- al was represented by Shazoo Ghaznavi. Libya's claims were opposed by Safia Farkash Gaddafi, the 69-year-old widow now living in Oman with sons Hannibal and Mohammad, and daughter Aisha. Safia Farkash's lawyer, Char- ilos 'Harris' Oikonomopoulos, claimed that Muatassim Gadd- afi had another heir: his hith- erto unknown wife, the Dutch model Lisa van Goinga and her son. Oikonomopoulos, appearing as a special mandatory for one of Muatassim Gaddafi's heirs, insisted that Gaddafi's Malta cash were his private funds and did not belong to the govern- ment. "You've been trying to prove that the provenance of his funds was illicit… there has not been a single clue of a sin- gle time of any amount coming from any official or related Lib- yan business," the Greek lawyer told the Libyan AG's lawyer in Malta. "These funds were pri- vate funds, having nothing to do with the Libyan state." Sammut had testified dur- ing these proceedings on three separate occasions. In January 2018, he had told the court that as part of his role as an auditor, he had set up the Maltese com- pany Mezen International Lim- ited for Muatassam Gaddafi in 2003 or 2004 and later, in 2010, had also set up Capital resourc- es Limited for him. He had explained that Mezen no longer held any assets, as these had been transferred to Capital Resources. Mezen had then been transferred to Sam- mut's ownership in order for him to wind it up, but this was interrupted by the 2011 civil war in Libya. The company was "completely inactive," he ex- plained. Muatassim Gaddafi was the only shareholder in Capital Resources, and as it had been frozen just a few months after being set up, no audits had ever been carried out, nor annual ac- counts or returns or any other documents ever submitted. Sammut said he had trans- ferred around €50,000 from his client account into another ac- count held in his name and had subsequently informed the At- torney General and the Minis- try for Foreign Affairs when this account had been frozen. Sammut had also testified to having made the introductions between Gaddafi, as a share- holder of Mezen International, to Bank of Valletta's directors, but had not participated in the discussions about the opening of BOV accounts, which had taken place between the bank and Gaddafi, directly. Sammut said that besides in- troducing the company's func- tionaries and associates directly to the bank's CEO at the time, he had also submitted "the usu- al documents" including the Memorandum and Certificate of Registration to the bank. He claimed that in one meeting which he had been involved in, he had told bank officials to carry out due diligence or file a money laundering report if they had difficulties relating to the provenance of the funds. Sammut had been summoned to testify a second time in April 2019, during which hearing he had identified the individuals who had been present for those meetings which he had attend- ed, adding that according to his own records, he had told them to carry out their own due dil- igence. Asked about what monies he had received from Capital Re- sources Limited, Sammut con- firmed that he had received funds, but had never withdrawn them because he was never given a mandate to do so. The vouchers for these monies could be found in the company's files, which had been seized by the police in view of international sanctions. The auditor had also exhibited copies of documents which he had passed on to the Sanctions Monitoring Board, which in- cluded a summary of the money he held on behalf of Capital Re- sources Limited. In December 2019, Sammut testified again, confirming that part of the money pertaining to Capital Resources came from Mezen International. He had no details about the original source of the funds because he had not been involved in the discussions which took place directly between the company and the bank. He added that he only kept bank statements for six years and confirmed that he had no control over the compa- Eight-year saga to return frozen Gaddafi millions in Malta, to Libya MATTHEW AGIUS Senior Court Reporter