OPPOSITION Leader Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail has welcomed Swiss lawmakers’ motion calling for the repatriation of confiscated funds, including 104 million Swiss francs (RM430 million), allegedly laundered and stolen  from 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB). 

The Pakatan Harapan president lauded Switzerland’s Parliament for allowing the motion to be debated today, and appealed to the MPs to support the proposal.

“I have written to all 200 Swiss MPs to consider our request that the repatriation of the seized illicit funds of 1MDB be made by the Government of Switzerland to Malaysia within the framework of mutual legal assistance procedures with a priority of reimbursing the monies to a competent Malaysian government of the day unblemished by corrupt practices and untainted by kleptocracy,” she said in a statement today.

Swiss lawmaker Sommaruga Carlo, of the Social Democratic Party, is to table Motion 17.3547: Repatriation of confiscated corruption funds to robbed populations.

“The Federal Council (cabinet) is instructed to repatriate to its country of origin, at least in part, profits unlawfully obtained in third-party countries by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, in accordance with the procedures of the Illegally Acquired Assets Act (SR 196.1) in the countries concerned,” reads the motion.

The motion was triggered by plans for the Swiss Treasury to absorb illicit funds linked to financial crimes, like those which occurred in the 1MDB scandal, recovered by Swiss authorities.

Lawmakers on the national council, the lower house of the Swiss federal assembly, are expected to vote on whether to repatriate the funds on Thursday.

The repatriation of funds hidden or stashed overseas, away from their country of origin, and their use to benefit the nationals harmed by such corrupt practices is an international principle adopted as a result of a UN convention which Malaysia signed in Mexico on December 9, 2003, and ratified on September 24, 2008.

The convention saw the inclusion of a specific chapter on asset recovery aimed at returning assets to their rightful owners, including countries from which they had been illicitly taken.

Article 35 of the UN convention states that “entities or persons, who have suffered damage as a result of an act of corruption, have the right to initiate legal proceedings against those responsible for that damage in order to obtain compensation”. – March 13, 2018.