French refuse to hear case

Press, 26 June 1987, Page 19

French refuse to hear case

NZPA-Reuter France A French court has refused to hear an embezzlement case against the ousted Haitian dictator, Jean-Claude Duvalier, crippling efforts to recover millions of dollars which Haiti’s new rulers , said he stole. A civil tribunal in Grasse, a French Riviera town, said it had no jurisdiction over acts committed by Duvalier during his 15 years as president and was not competent to hear a suit brought by the Haiti Government. The suit was the first of its kind and Haiti had hoped it would lay the legal foundation for a world-wide appropriatioh of Duvalier’s assets and . property. 1 . The suit accuses Duvalier, his Finance Minister Frantz Merceron, family members and other close associates of stealing more than SUSI2O million ($202.8 million) from their impoverished Caribbean nation before fleeing to France in February last year.

Duvalier now lives in exile in the village of

Mougins, eight kilometres from Grasse, and lawyers for the Haiti Government argued ‘ his residency made him liable to judgment under French law. The three-man tribunal, however, said the case Involved "relations be- • tween a State and one of its agents” and so could only be resolved within the Haitian disciplinary structure. “Under French law, a demand of this nature does not fall' within the competence of civil jurisdiction but exclusively within the competence of administrative jurisdiction,” it said in a decision announced after six weeks of deliberation.

The decision effectively ends months of efforts by Haiti and . teams of lawyers to trace , and recover riches they believe Duvalier and his entourage salted away in Switzerland,, the United States and elsewhere.

It is a major victory for Duvalier and his French lawyer Sauveur Vaisse who repeatedly dismissed the suit as an act of political vengeance. Du-

valier and other members of his family were not present in the court. Haiti’s new government prepared 16 volumes of affidavits and supporting evidence for the Grasse court, detailing what it called a "pillage of gigantic proportions.” A judgment that Duvalier owed money to the Haiti Government would have provided the legal weapon necessary to seize Duvalier’s assets, lawyers say’ Several of Duvalier’s bank accounts have already been frozen but Haiti has been unable to gain control of them. “J won’t hide from you our disappointment at this decision,” Yann Colin, a French lawyer acting for the Haiti Government, told Reuters. , "We ~ had. „hoped ... ■ a.French court would deliver a Judgment that could be executed without too much argument in the United States and elsewhere,” he said. But he said that Haiti might ap- , peal against the decision before a regional Court of Appeal in Aix-en-Pro-vence.