Diamond trader guilty of corruption

Businessman sentenced to five years

GENEVA • In a landmark verdict in one of the mining world's most high profile legal cases, a Swiss criminal court on Friday found Israeli businessman Beny Steinmetz guilty of corruption and forgery and sentenced him to five years in jail, with a sizable fine.

The ruling is a blow for Steinmetz, a diamond trader, whose pursuit of the world's richest uptapped deposits of iron ore put him at the centre of a battle that has triggered probes and litigation around the world.

Steinmetz said he would immediately appeal the verdict, which also included a 50 million Swiss francs (US$56.48 million) fine.

“It is a big injustice,” he told reporters in the courtyard of the Geneva courthouse.

Friday's verdict followed a two-week trial of Steinmetz and two others variously accused of paying or arranging payment of $10 million in bribes to obtain exploration permits for iron ore buried beneath the remote Simandou mountains of Guinea and of forging documents to cover it up through a web of shell companies and bank accounts. All three denied the charges.

Presiding judge Alexandra Banna said Steinmetz had made an immediate profit from the rights to mine and not a cent went to the West African nation of Guinea.

No one from the government in Guinea was immediately available to comment.

Steinmetz, 64, a former Geneva resident who moved back to Israel in 2016, has in the past been ranked as a billionaire and one of Israel's wealthiest men. Asked by the court to estimate his personal fortune, he said it was in the range of US$50 million and US$80 million.

Central to Steinmetz's defence was his claim that he was not involved in the day-to-day running of Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR), which employs some 100,000.

Steinmetz's co-defendants, a French man and a Belgian woman, were also found guilty of corruption and were given a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence and a two-year suspended sentence, plus fines of five million Swiss francs and 50,000 Swiss francs, respectively.

Jean-Marc Carnice, a lawyer for the French man, said his client was going to appeal.

“I also note that my client was acquitted of forgery, completely acquitted of forgery,” Carnice said.

The lawyer for the Belgian woman could not be reached for comment.

They have 10 days to lodge an appeal.

Beny Steinmetz