Some €96 million linked to blood relatives of slain Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and held by a Maltese bank must be returned to the conflict-ridden Libyan state following a ruling by Malta's courts on Tuesday.
The six-year case filed by the Libyan Attorney General accused the Maltese bank, the Bank of Valletta (BoV), of breaching "know your customer" rules by holding vast sums for Gaddafi under a different name, Muatasimbllah Muammar Abuminyar.
Mutassim Gaddafi, the fourth son of the former leader, was discovered to be the owner of the Maltese-registered company with BoV accounts. He died in 2011 at the height of civil uprisings in the North African country and was found upon his death with BOV-issued credit cards, reported the Times of Malta.
"According to Libyan law, as an army official he had been precluded from drawing benefits from any business interests. Moreover, he had failed to submit a full declaration of assets as prescribed by the laws of his country," the Maltese newspaper said.
Gaddafi's widow, Safia Farkash, contested the claims filed by the Libyan Attorney General. Her lawyer argued the cash included private funds and was not government-owned.
"You’ve been trying to prove that the provenance of his funds was illicit… there has not been a single clue of a single time of any amount coming from any official or related Libyan business," the Greek lawyer, Charilos 'Harris' Oikonomopoulos, told the Libyan Attorney General's lawyer in Malta.
Former treasurer for the Maltese Labour Party Joe Sammut is accused of handling Gaddafi's accounts in the country. The accountant has faced court proceedings for creating companies with false stock to secure resident permits for Libyan businessmen in Malta, according to Malta Today.
Libya has been wrecked by conflict since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed Gaddafi in 2011.
The country was for years split between rival administrations in the east and west, each supported by different militias and foreign governments.