A NICOSIA court yesterday threw out a lawsuit filed by a Cyprus-based Serbian businessman claiming the Popular Bank withheld his money in a secret account allegedly linked to sanctions-busting for the Milosevic regime.
Predrag Djordjevic had been seeking compensation and damages in a 900,000 Deutschmark (DM) transaction he said was never completed.
In 1994 he had a licence issued on humanitarian grounds by the United Nations that allowed him to sell cotton for making medical products to a Serbian company while sanctions were in force against Yugoslavia.
To facilitate payment, Djordjevic opened an account at Beogradska Banka in Nicosia in the name of Genemp, his trading company. But instead of receiving the full amount from Belgrade directly, claimed Djordjevic, Genemp was credited with just DM 537,000, which had been transferred from the Popular Bank account of Antexol – an offshore company in Cyprus.
Djordjevic sought the remaining DM 360,000 plus damages from Popular Bank. He believes this amount was also credited to Antexol’s account at Popular Bank, but was used for other purposes.
Antexol was named by the International War Crimes Tribunal as one of eight offshore ventures forming part of a money-laundering network. All of them had opened accounts with the Popular Bank. They were registered on the island by the Tassos Papadopoulos law firm.
Essentially, it was Djordjevic’s contention that his company had been mistaken for one of the money-laundering fronts on the island, and that the Popular Bank, Beogradska and Antexol were embroiled in a conspiracy illegally to siphon cash from the former Yugoslavia to Cyprus.
Under this scenario, the cash would be illegally brought to Larnaca airport in suitcases; there the Yugoslav couriers would meet with representatives of Beogradska; the money would then be counted and distributed into various accounts held with the Popular Bank, in the presence of bank employees and Beogradska officials.
The Popular Bank had denied any wrongdoing.
In his ruling yesterday, Judge Nikos Sandis said much of the testimony furnished by the plaintiffs in court – as evidence of a conspiracy – was flimsy, and that moreover many of the plaintiffs’ testimony was “rife with contradictions”.
In particular, the judge homed in on the testimony of Djordjevic. In a remark he felt was crucial to the case, Sandis said that Djordjevic initially claimed that the supposed secret account had been held with the Popular Bank. But on cross-examination, Djordjevic conceded that the account was kept with the Cyprus branch of Beogradska Banka.
This is a point contested by Djordjevic’s lawyers, who feel the judge misinterpreted what was actually said in court.
Further, Sandis was far from convinced that the contentious transaction had been worth DM 900,000, noting that witnesses were unsure about both the amount and the relevant dates.
And according to the judge, the testimony of former Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic “failed to help the plaintiffs’ case in any way.
“His statements were generic, unfounded and completely unrelated to the year in question, 1994. He did not come to court in order to lie…[but] he came determined to give his own account about the manner in which money was laundered…”
In concluding, Sandis noted the following: “It was never proved that the sum of DM 900,000 was ever transferred by anyone to Beogradska, or that the sum was received by anyone at any time. Nor has it been proved that the said sum was sent in cash in bags or suitcases from former Yugoslavia to the Larnaca Airport, or that it came into the possession of the defendants at any stage in a manner that would have rendered them [the defendants] accountable to the plaintiffs.”
In addition, “there is no testimony from which it might be plausibly deduced that Antexol Trade Limited was set up by the plaintiffs, let alone allow one to deduce that [Antexol] was part of a mechanism to bypass UN Security Council restrictions.
“The fact alone that the defendants were clients of the Tassos Papadopoulos & Co law office does not constitute adequate basis for such a conclusion, to say the least.
“Nor has it been established that the said currency was imported illegally or irregularly into Cyprus for the purpose of covering up so-called activities of the defendants in relation to Yugoslav interests or for money-laundering purposes.”
Soteris Drakos, one of Djordjevic’s lawyers, told the Mail yesterday they planned to appeal the decision with the Supreme Court.
“The ruling is rife with errors, and in many places the reasoning does not add up,” commented Drakos.
The lawsuit was filed in June 2000, but the trial did not get under way until summer 2006.
The closing arguments were made in May this year. More than 20 witnesses appeared in court.
