Mogadishu (PP News Desk) — In 2013 the Federal Government of Somalia under President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud instructed an American law firm to trace Somalia assets frozen in foreign banks. Jeremy Wyeth Schulman is the senior lawyer expressly task with identification and repatriation of Somalia assets in U.S. and and other foreign banks.
Two factors made easier for the federal government to attempt to reclaim Somalia assets being held at foreign banks. (1) Its new status as the first post-transition government and (2) the abolition of the financial management board agreed at 2012 London conference. Only after the United Nations alerted Somali citizens about a plot to steal national assets did the need to form a Financial Management Committee arise thanks in part to the intervention of the former Puntland State President Abdirahman Farole who called on the international community to nip the plot to repatriate Somali assets in the bed.
In 2020 American authorities indicted Jeremy Wyeth Schulman “on charges he …to fraudulently obtain more than $12.5 million in Somali government assets from financial institutions.” The date for his trial has not been disclosed, but Judge Paula Xinis has been assigned to try the case.
In line with the American criminal justice system procedures, federal prosecutors will provide the defendant with an opportunity to cooperate with the investigation in return for reduced sentencing or acquittal. If Jeremy argues that the money he had kept was a part of the commission agreed with the federal government of Somalia, the prosecutors will have to demand clarifications from the Somalia government. The federal government of Somalia has never publicised the terms of the agreement with the American law firm.
President Mohamud reportedly authorised that some of the state money identified be deposited in a Turkish bank. He did not share with the parliament or the public details about the plan to repatriate Somalia assets even after the United Nations warned against a plot to steal Somalia assets.
The previous federal government kept distance from the case by not commenting on the indictment of a lawyer whom the predecessor government had instructed to help with repatriation of Somalia assets.
© Puntland Post, 2022
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