Four employees of the bank Gazprombank Suisse, including its managing director, appear on Wednesday in Swiss justice for having agreed to manage the questionable assets of Russian cellist Sergei Roldougin, a close friend of Vladimir Putin.
The four defendants are accused of not having taken the necessary precautions to ensure that the Russian cellist and conductor was the legitimate beneficiary of the sums entrusted to the bank between 2014 and 2016, despite the "objective doubts
"
that the millions of Swiss francs transiting through his account should have aroused.
Under Swiss law, the musician, who is also the godfather of one of the Russian president's daughters, should also have been subject to stricter checks as a so-called politically exposed person.
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Since the announcement of this trial, the Swiss press has wondered whether the cellist has not acted with these accounts as a "
straw man
" for the benefit of the Russian president and his entourage.
Dark suits and ties, the four defendants - three Russians and a Swiss whose identity cannot be revealed due to local law - appeared on Wednesday at the district court in Zurich, the financial capital of Switzerland.
The defendants, who reject the charges, face a seven-year suspended prison sentence.
When the accounts were opened, doubts already surrounded the origin of the sums received by the conductor, one of the questions being in particular how an artist could dispose of such a fortune, underlined the judge who asked defendants why they had not carried out checks.
"
I reject the charges
," the bank's chief executive said.
"
For me, personally, this is an extraordinary situation
," he added, explaining that a conviction would mark "
really the end of (his) career
".
Out of the banking sector
Gazprombank Suisse was the subsidiary in the Alpine country of Gazprombank, the financial arm of the Russian gas giant Gazprom.
Its activities focused mainly on products and services intended to finance international trade operations.
Banned from the Swiss banking sector after the invasion of Ukraine, it has announced that it will end its activities in Switzerland in October 2022, but is currently still in the process of liquidating its business relations in the Alpine country.
