BERN, Nov 11 (AFP) - Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said Thursday that she had "no information" about reportedly secret bank accounts held by the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Switzerland.
Calmy-Rey told a news conference in the Swiss capital that she was confident that Swiss bankers would show the "necessary vigilance" if something did arise.
French judicial sources have said that magistrates opened an investigation in October 2003 into transfers of up to 11.5 million euros (14.8 million dollars) from Switzerland to bank accounts belonging to Arafat's wife, Suha, in Paris.
The transfers were reported by French banking surveillance authorities between July 2002 and July 2003, and magistrates wanted to find their origin.
The French newspaper Liberation reported Wednesday that the International Monetary Fund had found an 897.6 million dollar hole in the finances of the Palestinian Authority, most of it siphoned off import taxes.
It said some of the funds were sent to Switzerland, which has strict banking secrecy rules except in criminal cases, and then invested.
11/11/2004 14:51 GMT - AFP