David Pallister, Owen Bowcott and Alex Bellos
Wednesday July 17, 2002
The Guardian
King Fahd's trusts have been run by one of Liechtenstein's most extraordinary figures, the lawyer Herbert Batliner, whose clients have included alleged insider dealers, the son of an African dictator and the pardoned fugitive US financier Marc Rich.
Worth some £250m, the 73-year-old Mr Batliner's opulent home on the Alpine slopes boasts an underground car park and a bronze abstract sculpture on the lawn, while his office hosts a canvas by the surrealist Paul Delvaux.
"We... don't take unannounced clients, or those that show up with suitcases full of cash," Dr Batliner once told a journalist.
In 1999, he was named in German investigations into the funding of Chancellor Kohl's Christian Democrat Party through another trust, called Norfolk. Dr Batliner's office says he did not know his client was a CDU official.
In 1990, an Ecuadorian drug baron's partner approached him to set up a trust. Later, the US tried to confiscate the cash.
Liechtenstein's chief prosecutor, Robert Wallner, said: "Dr Batliner's position was that he had [been] given reassurances that the money was of a legal source." Money laundering was not an offence at that time in Liechtenstein.
Dr Batliner's office said the firm was "fully cleared".
Last year, Brazil began investigating Sanud, a trust allegedly used to transfer cash to the Brazilian football federation chief, Ricardo Teixeira. Further inquiries are likely.
Dr Batliner has been quoted as saying: "I'm not a Father Confessor who has to ask his clients if they have obeyed the laws of their homelands." And he points out that 80% of clients were referred to him by banks.