Financial Transparency Coalition

GENEVA — Swiss authorities on Thursday lifted a 12-year freeze on nearly seven million dollars in assets the late Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko held in Switzerland, allowing their return to his family.

Chairman of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions, Mark Pieth raised an appeal against a Swiss bank to release $6million in assets belonging to former DR Congo’s dictator, Mobutu Sese Sisoko, to DR Congo, but the court rather ruled the looted money to the late dictator’s family.