New Details Emerge in Complex Savisaar Loan Case
The Swiss bank account of a fund allegedly connected to Tallinn mayor and Center Party leader Edgar Savisaar had its entire 470,000 euro balance withdrawn in cash in 2011, documents from Switzerland have revealed.
The development has further fueled media speculation surrounding an ongoing criminal investigation into Savisaar's affairs, with outlets voicing suspicions of corruption and a scheme to conceal funds.
The withdrawal information was discovered by Eesti Ekspress when examining Swiss court documents concerning Savisaar's failed attempt to prevent the Estonian Prosecutor's Office from obtaining documents about said bank account.
The Swiss documents reveal that the account had a deposit level of 470,000 euros which was paid out in cash in 2011 to a person who's name the court documents do not show. The court papers go on further to say that the money was to be used for campaign contributions to a political party and for paying publisher's bills.
Lawyers representing Savisaar and Alexander Kofkin, a businessman whose name has come up in connection with the investigation, admit that the cash was paid out, the weekly reported on Thursday.
The loan case
Details of the Prosecutor's Office investigation are scant. In July, the office confirmed that an investigation connected to Savisaar was being carried out under the section of the penal code dealing with money laundering, but has otherwise remained tight-lipped about the matter.
Savisaar said in an interview last year that the case had to do with a fund, started in 1997 in Switzerland, to finance his publishing activity.
Honoring a Prosecutor's Office request, Switzerland provided documents at the end of 2012 concerning the fund and an 173,000-euro loan that Savisaar had acquired from a Panama-registered company, Pipa Business Corporation, in 2009. Savisaar had failed to declare the loan and was fined 575 euros by the police in 2010.
Echoing Savisaar's assertion, Center Party's Secretary General Priit Toobal send out a press release on behalf of the party last Friday saying that the Swiss fund was strictly related to publishing.
“The fund mentioned by Äripäev has supported the publishing of Savisaar's books, but never the Center Party nor Edgar Savisaar,” Toobal said in the release, adding that the party has never received any donations from Switzerland nor has anyone from there offered any funding.
Kofkin's participation in the case is explained in an article in the official Tallinn newspaper Pealinn, which in September wrote that the Prosecutor's Office claimed Kofkin may have paid a kickback to Savisaar for winning a tender for setting up a chain of sausage kiosks and for the right to build a hotel. The newspaper noted that Savisaar had taken out a personal loan of around 34,000 euros from Kofkin.
Õhtuleht reported on Saturday that Kofkin had paid 192,000 euros into the Swiss fund in 2007 shortly before winning the kiosk tender.
Savisaar's attempts to halt the investigation
Savisaar and Kofkin have undertaken considerable legal efforts to keep details of the fund and its account from reaching investigators.
In Switzerland, they unsuccessfully turned to the courts to block Swiss authorities from turning over the above mentioned documents to Estonian prosecutors.
In Estonia, they sued the Prosecutor's Office in an effort to "suspend the processing of personal data, to refute incorrect facts and to establish illegal disclosure" of information in the ongoing investigation into the Savisaar loan, reported Postimees.
The Supreme Court rejected the complaint at the end of March, following dismissals from lower level courts.
The speculation
Media outlets have speculated that Savisaar may have concealed funds in Switzerland that he had gained through corruption.
Savisaar has denied owning any accounts or funds in Switzerland.
Äripäev speculates that Savisaar's 173,000-euro loan of 2009 was in fact part of a complex method of extracting money from the Swiss fund.
In October 2009, Savisaar acquired the loan from Bravotex, a company headed by two son's of Ain Seppik, a former Center Party MP. In November of the same year, the Swiss fund allegedly transferred 185,000 euros to Panamanian company Pipa Business Corporation, who sent 173,550 euros two weeks later to Primelight Overseas Holding. Primelight transferred the sum at the beginning of December to Bravotex and Savisaar's loan was written over to Pipa.
Arno Põder, an information officer at the Northern District Prosecutor's Office told uudised.err.ee on Friday that the preliminary investigation into the affair may drag on for some time due to the international aspects of the case.