Wednesday, March 19, 2008 Disinis account empty, state lawyers reveal
GOVERNMENT lawyers disclosed that a US$4 million deposit in a Swiss bank under the name of Herminio Disini's children, former golf buddy of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos, is now empty.
"There is reliable information that the money deposited in Swiss accounts of Liliana and Herminio Angel Disini had already been withdrawn," the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) and the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) said in a pleading filed with the Sandiganbayan First Division.
The Disini Swiss deposit is part of Civil Case 0013, a lawsuit pending with the Sandiganbayan since 1987.
Based on government failure to secure a favorable final and executory verdict on its bid to recover the Disini deposits, the Swiss Federal Court released the Credit Suisse account from a two decade-old freeze order on August 18, 2006.
This despite a Sandiganbayan resolution dated December 29, 2006 placing the said Swiss account under its custody to prevent Disini and his relatives from draining the deposits.
But the ruling fell short of the "final and executory" decision that the Swiss authorities required of the PCGG as a precondition for the maintenance of the freeze order.
Swiss courts ordered that the Disini account be frozen in 1986 in connection with lawsuits filed by the Philippine government against Herminio on allegations that he amassed ill-gotten wealth by taking advantage of his close relationship with then President Marcos.
Two separate criminal cases remain pending at the Sandiganbayan against Disini wherein he was accused of raking in millions in illegal commission for brokering the award of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) project for American firms Westinghouse Electric Corporation, and Burns and Roe.
Government prosecutors said Herminio received US$17 million from Westinghouse and US$1 million from Burns and Roe, while Energy Corporation and Engineering and Construction Company of Asia, supposedly owned by Disini and Marcos, received lucrative sub-contracts from Westinghouse for "mechanical and electrical construction" in the nuclear plant project. (Sunnex)
