Government will return 6 million dollars from Dictator Jean Claude Duvalier to Haiti

BERN, Switzerland (AP) — The Swiss government is ready to give the Haitian government $6 million seized from bank accounts linked to former dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, authorities said Thursday.

The Duvalier family failed to prove that the money is of legitimate origin and is therefore not entitled to the assets, the Federal Office of Justice said.

The family has 30 days to appeal the decision with Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Tribunal.

The assets “are to be used for social or humanitarian projects to benefit the Haitian population,” the office said.

It said it would implement the projects through aid organizations in Haiti and make sure the money would be used in a transparent way.

Many in Haiti consider the money was stolen from public funds before Duvalier was ousted in 1986. He has always denied that.

The money, which has been frozen since 2002, is in accounts in the names of Duvalier, who is believed to be living in exile in France, and members of his family.

Swiss aid organizations said Haiti urgently needed the money to bring food and drinking water to hundreds of thousands suffering from the impact of four tropical storms and hurricanes that battered the impoverished Caribbean nation during last year’s harvest season.

Switzerland has traditionally been a favorite location for dictators’ money because of its banking secrecy rules. But reforms over the past two decades have made it harder to hide money in Switzerland, and the country has become a world leader in returning such cash.

Of about $730 million in Swiss accounts linked to the late Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, virtually all has been returned to the West African country.