Ex U.S. Envoy Asset Freeze Lifted in Austria
An Austrian court has lifted a freeze on the assets of the wife of a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, imposed during a money-laundering probe, officials said Friday.
A Vienna court ruled there were "not sufficient grounds" to block several bank accounts belonging to the wife of Zalmay Khalilzad, court spokesman Bernhard Hinger told Agence France Presse.
Lawyers for Afghan-born Khalilzad, who served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2003-5 and then in Iraq until 2007, had said Monday it was "unclear" why the accounts were blocked in the first place.
The U.S. Justice Department had merely made a request to Austria for information and no charges had been brought against Khalilzad or his wife Cheryl Benard, the lawyers had said.
"The (request) does not contain evidence of money laundering or other offences on the part of Ambassador Khalilzad or Ms. Benard," lawyers Robert Buehler and Holger Bielesz said.
The freezing in February of the accounts only became public this week after Austrian magazine Profil got hold of court documents that had been thrown away in a rubbish bin in Vienna.
The magazine said that the investigation centres on the alleged 2012 transfer of $1.4 million from Iraq and the United Arab Emirates to accounts in the United States and Austria.
Seven accounts in Benard's name, a U.S.-Austrian citizen, containing some 780,000 euros ($1.0 million), were then frozen by Austrian authorities, Profil reported.
Source: Agence France Presse
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