A Swiss court has rejected a bid by French-Israeli tycoon Beny Steinmetz to have his prison sentence dropped in a bribery case over mining rights in Guinea.
The mining magnate was found guilty by a Geneva appeals court in April 2023 of paying bribes to Guinean officials to secure mining rights in the southeastern Simandou region, which is estimated to contain one of the world’s largest untapped iron ore deposits.
Steinmetz, who made his fortune in diamonds, was found to have set up a complex financial web to pay bribes to ensure his company could obtain permits.
He was given a three-year prison sentence, half of which was suspended, but the sentence was frozen pending an appeal to Switzerland’s highest court.
In September, Steinmetz’s lawyers asked for the verdict to be withdrawn, citing previously unpublished documents showing that the prosecutor had committed serious violations.
The documents from Israeli investigations include email exchanges with Swiss authorities that showed illegal actions by Geneva prosecutor Claudio Mascotto, who initially led the investigation, they said.
They charged, among other things, that Mascotto had “unlawfully granted immunity to a witness in exchange for testimony against Beny Steinmetz.”
But the Geneva Regional Court, charged with assessing the request, rejected all of the Steinmetz team’s arguments, ruling, among other things, that talk of immunity had been “theoretical” and that no guarantee had been given.
Her ruling, dated November 15 and made public on Thursday, states: “The complaint based on a guarantee of immunity is unfounded.”
“The court declares the request for review inadmissible” of the court’s judgment.
Steinmetz’s lawyers have denounced a “shocking decision”, which they say “amounts to a denial of reality”.
They vowed to appeal the review decision to Switzerland’s highest court, where their appeal against the verdict itself is also pending.
Steinmetz, who has faced legal trouble in several countries, was initially convicted in the case in Switzerland in January 2021.
He was accused of leading the charge to bribe the wife of former Guinean President Lansana Conte and others to acquire the lucrative mining rights.
Prosecutors say Steinmetz acquired the rights shortly before Conte died in 2008, after paying about $10 million in bribes over several years.
Conte ordered global mining giant Rio Tinto to relinquish two concessions that were subsequently acquired by Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR) for an investment of $160 million.
Just 18 months later, BSGR sold 51 percent of its stake in the concession to Brazilian mining giant Vale for $2.5 billion.
But in 2013, Guinea’s first democratically elected president, Alpha Conde, launched a review of the licenses allocated under Conte and stripped the VBG consortium, formed by BSGR and Vale, of its license.
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