IMPORTANT FACTS
– Until my arrest “for alleged serious tax evasion” and the closing of the companies, the companies had fulfilled all of their obligations to their clients and were not involved in any unlawful activity.
– Until my arrest, the companies were not involved with any litigation or any form of dispute with clients.
– All disputes reported in the media came after the closing of the companies, my arrest and the media publicity. The fact remains that the companies had no legal dispute with any client as per 31st January 1980.
– The companies had no liquidity problems in January 1980 – Most of the companies and my personal liquid assets were in London, not in Switzerland or some remote offshore place hidden in a bank.
– I have never seen the original warrant for alleged serious tax evasion and what documentation was used to convince the court and justify the issue of such a warrant.
– I had never been contacted before with regards to these allegations of serious tax evasion, nor had my accountant or lawyers.
– I hold the Danish “record” for being kept in pre-trial detention – 1492 days, at least in the last 300 years.
– I never was a prisoner according to the Danish Prison Service (Kriminalforsorgen) – “only” a person kept on remand for 1492 days.
– An internal memorandum from the National Bank in May 1979 showed that the National Bank had been told by the police that it was impossible to make a case against the companies and me since all clients were satisfied with the company and not willing to complain about anything.
– An internal memo by the Copenhagen Tax Office in October 1979 concluded again that the National Bank and the fiscal authority were unable to find any clients who would complain against the companies. Moreover, this memo confirmed that the standard business terms used by the companies did not require SCE to buy or hedge the margin sales. SCE had no obligation to hedge the sales of precious metal on the terminal contracts – deferred sales. The memo further confirmed that most investors did not want their silver delivered, but just liquidated their contracts with SCE.
– I was solvent at the time of my arrest when I was declared bankrupt by a Commercial Court (even the Prosecution’s expensive auditors confirmed this).
– I was declared bankrupt by the Commercial Court, not having proper access to the seized material with Bagmandspolitiet and despite having most of my assets outside Denmark. Moreover, most of these assets outside of Denmark I was allowed to keep.
– I offered the Commercial Court, in February 1980 shortly after my arrest, to bring all my liquid assets to Denmark if I was immediately released in order to run the companies and attend to my affairs.
– The dates selected for making the balances for the estate of the bankruptcies’ was entirely arbitrary so as to give Bagmandspolitiet the best scenario for later making a case against me. Moreover, preventing the registration of SCE A/S did “save” a lot of people from possible bankruptcy as they owed the company money.
– I have never seen the accounts of the estates from the appointed liquidators’ advocates Bent Jespersen and Egon Høgh. What happened to the assets of the companies and my personal assets, my family’s art collection, antiques and valuables? (see below)
– I never had contact with any criminal elements in Danish society before the event accepts the “criminals” among the authorities.
– I never had any plans to run away to South America – all stories planted by the Special Prosecution.
– I never served a criminal sentence anywhere.
– How crazy the Danish bankruptcies were, the liquidator later handed my attorney Folmer Reindel 99 gold coins to give me (worth today US$110,000), since these were “my personal coins”. I was not allowed many other personal coins and collections. Nevertheless, the fact remains that I was allowed to keep many of my valuables, which I do thank the liquidators for, but this makes a mockery of the bankruptcy laws and procedures.
– The Danish media could write more than one thousand five hundred newspaper and magazine articles, broadcast radio and television programmes about my case and the event, but not bother being present at the European Court of Human Rights when Denmark, for the first time since the court was established nearly forty years earlier, stood accused and later judged for the first time. Whereas the French, German, Belgian and Dutch television was there, none from the Danish media bothered.
– The Danish authorities did not pay the money due to the compensation judgement of the Court of Human Rights (ECHR) since they claimed I owed money to pay for the trial – a trial which the ECHR judged to be unfair and confirmed that I did not get a fair trial, a contravention of Article 6 of the Convention of Human Rights – how ridiculous and absurd! I had to pay for a trial which was judged unfair by the Highest Court – The European Court of Human Rights? – No, you can’t fight City Hall.
PS!: I still do not know where all my thousands of wines from my wine cellar ended up, my 1961 Chateau Latour, Haut Brion, Mouton Rothchild, Lafitte, and most of all the 1961 Pétrus, one of the best wines of the Century. All Grand Crus, my magnums of Château Cheval Blanc, my favourite wine, of which I had many bottles, each bottle would today cost a fortune.
I was fortunate to drink three bottles of the 1947 Cheval Blanc in my life, after buying in 1965 a whole case from Montreux Palace. The hotel had one of the biggest wine cellars in Europe. This wine is often spoken of as a benchmark wine, indeed, a yardstick against which other Bordeaux should be measured and a standard to which contemporary winemakers should aspire.
One wine which I found on my return to Italy and Tuscany in 1984, was the Sassicaia which is today one of the most sought-after fine wines in the world. The first Super Tuscan, made from cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc on Italy’s coast, very Bordeaux-like, elegant and iconic wine. I knew Bettino Ricasoli, the 31st baron of Brolio, who devoted his life to his two main passions, wine and politics. He was president of the Chianti Classico Consortium and served as mayor of Gaiole in Chianti, one of Chianti Classico’s most important towns, from 1951 to 1960.
Justitslig?
Justitslig? - What does this word mean in English? Literary translated, it means a human corpse left from an injustice. Dead, due to injustice and a corpse cannot be brought back to life. The Germans use justizmord, the Danes the word justitsmord.
My first defence counsel, one of the most experienced criminal lawyers in Denmark, Jørgen Jacobsen, was just prior to my hunger strike in August 1980, speaking to me. He said that he felt that a “justitsmord” had already been committed in my case. Further, such murder leaves a corpse, – I said justitslig? Yes, he said, as a corpse cannot be revived.
That first day the Bagmandspolitiet and the Danish authorities arrested you and closed your business, a judicial murder took place, and since then, a corps has been left to rot.
Like I told you before, injustices take place in all part of the society. It is a fact, that if there were tens of thousands of people gathered at the Rådhuspladsen (Town Hall Square) and from the loudspeaker, someone shouted out:” the woman over there in the red coat and hat is a slut and a whore”. Most people would believe this and there is nothing that poor woman can do, there and then disprove the masses impression of her.
Everything they (the Danish authorities) did thereafter, was just to cover up this corpse from injustices, the killing and everything which really took place. This was very simple as they used (misused) their power by fabricating lies and deceit whilst using the willing Danish gutter-press to spread the lies.
JUSTITSLIG
Although that I have shaken hands and been in the company of kings, queens, presidents, prime ministers, princes and princesses, Nobel price laureates, ambassadors and captains of finance and industry, during the last 42 years I never found myself again after the terrible events in Denmark, I am not who I was, I have lived as a changed person marked by the scars which the Danish State inflicted on my family and me.
I did leave my isolation cell, but the solitary isolation has never left me!