THE TRIAL of a Serbian businessman who is suing Laiki Bank and a now-defunct company known as Antexol resumed yesterday in a Nicosia court.
The main witness of the day was Pambos Ioannides, a top lawyer from President Tassos Papadopoulos’ law offices and director of Antexol Trade Ltd from 1992 to 1995, at the height of the Bosnian war.
Antexol was one of eight offshore ventures tagged as “Milosevic companies” by the Hague Tribunal as part of a money-laundering network. Most of them had opened accounts with Laiki.
Predrag Djordjevic, owner of Genemp Trading, claims he was inadvertently sucked into the scheme when money launderers mistook his company for one of the fronts.
He says the bank illegally held his money in an account, and as a result of his inability to have access to the funds, he missed out on a number of business contracts.
In 1994 Djordjevic attempted to ship cotton into Yugoslavia with a United Nations permit.
He claims his Bulgarian trade partner deposited about 537,000 Deutschmarks (about $300,000) into his company account in Belgrade, and that the money was supposed to be transferred to Beogradska Banka in Cyprus.
The above sum was a down payment on 899,000 Deutschmarks for the deal.
However, the transfer was mysteriously blocked.
After a long legal wrangle with Beogradska, Djordjevic found his money had been moved into an account with Laiki. A company he had never heard of, Antexol Trade Ltd, controlled the account.
When the accounts were examined in court, Djordjevic discovered 537,000 Deutschmarks had been transferred to Antexol’s Popular Bank account, which bore the same number as his account with Beogradska.
Djordjevic, who finally received his money too late to save his cotton deal, then decided to take legal action against Laiki and Antexol Trade Ltd.
It is Djordjevic’s contention that, at the behest of the Milosevic regime, Beogradska coordinated the transfers of money among offshore companies in Cyprus.
In court yesterday, Djordjevic’s lawyer Christos Clerides grilled Ioannides, whose name appears on Antexol balance sheets among other documents, regarding the company’s activities.
The witness said that, as the company’s director, he did not concern himself with “day-to-day affairs” and as such was unable to answer most of Clerides’ questions.
Ioannides could not pinpoint the “precise nature” of Antexol’s activities.
According to the company’s act of incorporation, it was set up for “management and other services”.
Clerides pressed on, asking the witness for information on the company’s shareholders, on whose instructions was Antexol shut down, and to name the persons who appointed him director.
Ioannides’ response to the above was “I don’t recall”.
However, Ioannides did acknowledge that Beogradska Banka (BB) was a client of his law firm.
And he had heard of Djordjevic and his company Genemp Trading Ltd, though this was subsequent to Djordjevic’s filing of a complaint to police in 1988.
“Mr Djordjevic’s allegations back then were 100 per cent false,” Ioannides said.
According to Ioannides, Djordjevic was trying to blackmail Laiki, threatening to accuse of them of engaging in money laundering if they did not return a small amount of money.
But as to the DEM 537,000, Ioannides could not tell where these came from.
Clerides then referred to an interview by Tassos Papadopoulos with Politis newspaper (June 2002), where the latter spoke about Antexol and the Milosevic millions. The lawyer was trying to prove a connection between the company and the Papadopoulos law office.
“This was taken completely out of context,” Ioannides said.
“Mr Papadopoulos was simply referring to the existence of the allegations, he was not admitting anything.”
Before beginning his cross-examination of the witness, Laiki’s chief lawyer Kikis Tallarides protested against the references to Papadopoulos:
“A court’s purpose is to seek the truth, not promote political propaganda,” he said.
Sparks flew when Tallarides submitted to the court that Beogradska had issued instructions to revoke the wire transfer of 899,000 to Deutschmarks to Antexol. The witness corroborated this, saying he had a letter from one Slobodan Acimovic, former general manager of Antexol..
Clerides objected, asking the judge to declare Ioannides a hostile witness.
“Your honour, whenever I asked him about something he said he did not have the documents in his possession. Now all of a sudden he has everything at hand.”
Moreover, Clerides argued that the alleged revocation of the transfer was a totally new element in the case.
Judge Nikos Sandis dismissed the hostile-witness motion, as this was not feasible in a civil suit.
However, he sustained Clerides’ strenuous insistence that Acimovic’s original letter – not a copy – should be produced in court.
Clerides was hinting that the letter might be a fake. The judge eventually decided not to admit it as evidence.
After more sparring on legalistic points, Clerides re-directed.
He asked Ioannides how it was possible for him to know about the 899,000 DEM transfer to Antexol but not about the 537,000.
“Yes, because I had investigated this case [of the 899,000], because of the police probe,” replied Ioannides.
“Were it not for that, I would have no clue about all this,” he added.
Assuming the transfer of the whole amount were in fact cancelled, as Ioannides claims, Djordjevic should have got his money back.
The court stood in recess when the next witness of the day, former Laiki CEO Kikis Lazarides, failed to show up.
The bank’s lawyer explained that Lazarides had been served a summons but could not make it because he hadn’t been notified in time.
Apparently, Lazarides was served just before heading out to Larnaca airport for a trip abroad.
Judge Sandis seemed annoyed when it emerged that Lazarides had not even bothered to sign the paper, as required, which would have confirmed he was served.
“He was in a hurry, Your Honour,” an apologetic Tallarides said.
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