'Top French politicians had Swiss accounts'
A former executive of a Geneva-based bank says he gave authorities in France a list of 15 former and current French cabinet ministers with secret Swiss bank accounts.
Pierre Condamin-Gerbier, formerly with Reyl & Company, said on Wednesday he had submitted the list of “big names” to investigators.
Condamin-Gerbier was a witness before a French parliamentary commission investigating France’s former Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac, who resigned in disgrace in March over an undeclared foreign bank account said to contain around €600,000.
Cahuzac is now facing charges of tax fraud.
"The list and information . . . were transmitted yesterday to a French justice," Condamin-Gerbier, who worked at Reyl et Cie between 2006 and 2010, told the commission.
He had earlier said the list contained a number of well-known names.
Condamin-Gerbier had refused to name the holders of the bank accounts when he appeared before parliament, insisting the responsibility lay with the investigators.
"I can simply say that very big names in French politics figure on this list, people whose faces we are used to seeing on television,” he told newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche last month.
“These are personalities far better known to the public than Cahuzac."
Condamin-Gerbier has also said the family of a serving minister had funds in Switzerland for several years.
Last week, Cahuzac was heard by the same committee in the French parliament.
He attempted to clear up any suspicion over whether President François Hollande and Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault knew of his bank account by insisting he did not tell "the truth to anyone".
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Pierre Condamin-Gerbier, formerly with Reyl & Company, said on Wednesday he had submitted the list of “big names” to investigators.
Condamin-Gerbier was a witness before a French parliamentary commission investigating France’s former Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac, who resigned in disgrace in March over an undeclared foreign bank account said to contain around €600,000.
Cahuzac is now facing charges of tax fraud.
"The list and information . . . were transmitted yesterday to a French justice," Condamin-Gerbier, who worked at Reyl et Cie between 2006 and 2010, told the commission.
He had earlier said the list contained a number of well-known names.
Condamin-Gerbier had refused to name the holders of the bank accounts when he appeared before parliament, insisting the responsibility lay with the investigators.
"I can simply say that very big names in French politics figure on this list, people whose faces we are used to seeing on television,” he told newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche last month.
“These are personalities far better known to the public than Cahuzac."
Condamin-Gerbier has also said the family of a serving minister had funds in Switzerland for several years.
Last week, Cahuzac was heard by the same committee in the French parliament.
He attempted to clear up any suspicion over whether President François Hollande and Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault knew of his bank account by insisting he did not tell "the truth to anyone".
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