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Comments (0)A major Swiss bank reportedly will pay more than half a billion dollars in fines for covering up the transfer of Iranian funds to the United States.
Credit Suisse issued a statement Tuesday that it would likely pay $536 million for transfers of funds “for parties that are subject to U.S. economic sanctions,” The New York Times reported.
The Times quoted sources as saying that the parties included Iranian entities such as the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and Aerospace Industries Organization, both blacklisted by the U.S. government as weapons of mass destruction proliferators.
The violations involved removing information from transactions between 2002 and 2007 that would have identified the originator of the funds. Credit Suisse launched an internal investigation in 2005 and has changed its practices, the Times said.
Demjanjuk Witness May be Guilty of War Crimes
A witness in the war crimes trial of John Demjanjuk trial may himself be guilty of crimes against humanity.
Court investigators learned earlier this year that a man named Alex Nagorny murdered Jews in the Treblinka death camp, and a man by that name is due to testify in the Demjanjuk trial.
Demjanjuk is being tried on charges of accessory to the murder of 27,900 Jews in the Sobibor death camp in 1943.
His trial, which began Nov. 30 in Munich, was postponed early on because of the defendant’s poor health.
Demjanjuk’s attorney, Ulrich Busch, argued on the first day of the trial that it was unfair to try his client, whom he said was forced to work for the Germans, when people like Nagorny were never tried for their alleged crimes.
The court responded that an investigation was under way, which might lead to charges against Nagorny and another witness.
According to The Associated Press, the scheduled witness Nagorny had told investigators earlier this year that he was stationed at the Flossenburg concentration campwith Demjanjuk.
Meanwhile, according to the Bild Zeitung newspaper, prosecutors in the city of Ulm are looking into whether murder charges are possible against Demjanjuk for allegedly driving his truck over a man in 1947 near the city.
Michael Bischofberger, a spokesman for the state prosecutor in Ulm, told the German Press Agency that he could not confirm that the victim was Jewish, as the Bild reported. Bischofberger said the results of the investigation would be presented to the state prosecutor handling Demjanjuk’s trial in Munich.
Australia Court Grants Bail to Alleged Nazi
An alleged Nazi war criminal jailed in Australia while awaiting extradition to Hungary was granted bail.
A Federal Court judge granted bail Wednesday to Charles (Karoly) Zentai, 88, who had been in a Perth prison since October after losing numerous appeals to avoid becoming the first person Australia has extradited in connection with Nazi war crimes.
Zentai is accused of killing 18-year-old Peter Balasz in Hungary in 1944 because he was not wearing the mandatory yellow Star of David.
He has vehemently denied the charges, claiming since he was arrested by Australian Federal Police in 2005 that he had left Budapest the day before the alleged murder.
Zentai’s son, Ernie Steiner, told reporters after Wednesday’s ruling that “Christmas without him would just be something terrible I think, and for him to be alone inside a prison would have been even worse.”
Lawyers for Zentai, who was living in Australia, are appealing the decision by the government to surrender him to Hungarian authorities.