A WITNESS in the Predrag Djordjevic trial yesterday told the court how he came up against a brick wall with authorities in Cyprus when trying to investigate the case.
Djordjevic, a Serbian businessman, is suing Laiki Bank and a now-defunct offshore company called Antexol for illegally holding his money in an account, as a result of which he was unable to access the funds, missing out a number of contracts.
The money was supposed to be transferred to Beogradska Banka in Cyprus. 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.
This was in 1994, at the height of the Bosnian war, when Yugoslavia was subject to a strict UN embargo. 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.
Antexol was incorporated in 1992 by the Tassos Papadopoulos law firm as the nominees. But since it was an offshore company, its real owners or beneficiaries could not be Cypriots. The beneficiaries were named as Yugoslav nationals Ljljana Radenkovic and Radmila Budicin.
But neither Radenkovic nor Budicin had ever heard of Antexol, and had no idea their names were being used to front an offshore company in Cyprus.
They only found out years later, after both their names appeared on a blacklist issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Treasury.
The two women subsequently managed to clear their names.
In trying to get to the bottom of the affair, they had hired Cypriot lawyer Pavlos Angelides.
Testifying in court yesterday, Angelides said that his clients, Radenkovic and Budicin, complained that the Tassos Papadopoulos law firm was calling the shots, conducting Antexol’s business without their consent.
But when Angelides tried to secure documents relating to Antexol from the Tassos Papadopoulos law firm, he was brushed off.
“Pambos Ioannides [a partner with the Tassos Papadopoulos law firm] spoke to me very condescendingly… he almost insulted me,” Angelides said.
Next, the witness said, he contacted Laiki for some information, but the bank “sabotaged me all the way”.
According to Angelides, one senior bank official told him: “Do you really want to get into this?”
Angelides was then cross-examined by Laiki’s lawyer Kikis Tallarides.
Tallarides attempted to question the witness’ credibility, putting it to Angelides that by 2002 – when he began investigating – neither Radenkovic nor Budicin were any longer the owners of Antexol.
He also suggested that Angelides’ evidence was flimsy, telling the witness that he had never actually seen his clients in person, only talked to them over the phone.
Angelides admitted he did not see Radenkovic or Budicin, only talked to them.
“Yet you still decided to represent them in Cyprus, only to later drop the case?” challenged Tallarides.
The witness said he did abandon the case, but only because he was getting nowhere. The Registrar of Companies could not give him the names of Antexol’s real owners, only of the nominees – the directors of the Tassos Papadopoulos law firm.
Records of the real owners of offshore company are kept only by the Central Bank. But when Angelides turned to the Central Bank for help, he was told the information could not be disclosed at the time because all Antexol files were being held by the police, who were investigating the company.
“If you want to hear the truth, sir, the Central Bank tried to cover it all up,” Angelides said, addressing Tallarides.
Other witnesses on the day were Nairy Merhej, one of the directors of Antexol in 1994 and a member of the Tassos Papadopoulos law office, and Elena Mouskou of Costouris & Michaelides auditors (now PriceWaterHouse Coopers).
Questioned by the plaintiff’s lawyer Christos Clerides, Merhej identified her signature on Antexol’s act of incorporation, co-signed by Pambos Ioannides.
But she could not specifically recall the company.
“Our law office set up hundreds of companies… and this was a long time ago,” said Merhej.
Antexol was struck off the Registrar of Companies in August 2003, even though this is prohibited when a company is involved in litigation.
Clerides also summoned Elena Mouskou, who worked for Costouris & Michaelides, auditors of Antexol at the critical time.
Mouskou was not sure that she “made the books” for Antexol, nor did she remember who the shareholders were.
Also, she had never heard of Djordjevic or his company, Genemp Trading Ltd.
Lastly, a former assistant manager of Laiki’s Larnaca branch Andreas Iacocou took the stand. The witness was not sworn in, as he was subpoenaed with a special summons known as duces decum – requiring him simply to produce a document in court.
The document was a sworn testimony by Iacovou to the International Criminal Tribunal, where he admitted to meeting at Larnaca airport with Yugoslav couriers bringing suitcases packed with cash.
Tallarides objected, arguing the testimony was irrelevant because it dated to a period other than that in question.
That prompted a tirade from Clerides, who said that Antexol was inextricably linked to the whole money-laundering scheme perpetrated by the Milosevic regime in the 1990s.
Judge Nikos Sandis admitted Iacovou’s testimony, and the witness was excused.
The trial resumes on December 4.
