Nigeria Pushes to Recover Abacha's €185 Million From Liechtenstein

 Nigeria has embarked on an international campaign to press Liechtenstein to return the €185 million ill-gotten gains linked to the late military dictator, General Sani Abacha, which is still harboured in the tiny principality nearly 14 years after recovery proceedings began.The Nigerian government first requested assistance from Liechtenstein in returning the assets in 2000, two years after Abacha's sudden death paved the way for the return of civilian rule.

A report by the Financial Times yesterday, stated that criminal investigations and subsequent forfeiture proceedings established that the funds originated from bribes paid by Germany's Ferrostaal AG to companies, whose ultimate beneficiary was the late head of state. According to the newspaper, the transactions were related to a grossly inflated contract for the construction of an aluminium smelter.

Liechstenstein's constitutional court ordered the confiscation of the funds in 2012 and in March 2013, dismissed a final appeal against the order by companies linked to the Abacha family, clearing the way for restitution of the funds.

But the Liechtenstein government has declined to accept written guarantees from Nigeria that it will compensate the country in the unlikely event that it should incur any liabilities in a further suit that had been filed by the Abacha-linked companies at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

This could delay the return of the funds for several more years. The late Abacha was the penultimate and most brutal of Nigeria's military rulers, the newspaper said.

The late head of state and what Switzerland's Supreme Court dubbed the "Abacha family criminal enterprise," the newspaper alleged, amassed a fortune worth several billion dollars from misappropriation of public funds during his 1993 to 1998 rule. The lawyer representing the Abacha family could not be reached for comment.