From NewAfrican


 There is a new twist to our story of January 1997 on Gambia's missing
millions. We revealed that $3m had been stashed
 away in a secret bank account in Switzerland.

 The man who banked the money was Captain Ebou Jallow, who had earlier
resigned after falling out with the Gambian
 military junta before going into exile.

 He claimed that the money had been transferred by the Central Bank of
Gambia to the Credit Lyonnnais Suisse bank in
 Geneva on the express instructions of the Head of State President Yahya
Jammeh. Jallow had been a close confidant of
 Jammeh and said that he had a full power of attorney and had transferred
the money on Jammeh's behalf.

 This was the point at issue when the case was brought to trial one year
later in a Geneva court. The Swiss court found against
 Jallow and ruled that he should forfeit the $3m held in his account. It
also ruled that the money should be paid back to the
 Gambia government in due course.

 Jallow was ordered to pay all costs including 90,000 Swiss francs in court
fees.

 The fate of the $3m has now finally been decided in favour of the Gambian
government, but Gambian opposition leaders have
 pointed to other amounts which also mysteriously vanished into foreign bank
accounts at about the same time.

 Ouasinoe Darboe, the leader of the United Democratic Party, has frequently
questioned a further sum of $21.7m which were
 held at Citibank (Switzerland) and Citibank (New York). Darboe alleges that
these amounts were deposited by Jallow in
 accounts under the name of the then military ruler Yahya Jammeh.

 The money had originally come from Taiwan and President Jammeh had sent
Jallow to sign the loan agreement on behalf of
 the Republic of Gambia. The loan was released in two instalments. The
second valued at $30m was sent to the Citibank in
 New York into a special development account.

 At the same time the Governor of the Central Bank of Gambia was instructed
to write to the Taiwanese government to
 confirm receipt of the loan funds. Yet it was clear that the funds had not
arrived in the Gambia.

 A manager of Credit Lyonnais Suisse, Phillipe Bidawid later confirmed that
he had discussed with Jallow how some of this
 money could be transferred into personal accounts of the military rulers.

 Though the Geneva court has dealt with the $3m, the fate of the still
greater amounts of Taiwanese loan money has still not
 been satisfactorily revealed.


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