Switzerland holding dictators' funds

GENEVA, Swaziland, May 24 (UPI) -- Swiss Secretary of State Peter Maurer said the main topic on the table when he visited Egypt and Tunisia was the frozen assets of their former rulers.

Maurer, who spoke Monday at a conference in Geneva, said Swiss officials are helping the new governments in the two countries with the long process of repatriating the funds, swissinfo.com reported. He also said the government is investigating whether Swiss banks violated money-laundering guidelines.

"We have been asking ourselves at the finance and foreign ministries why there is so much money," he said.

Switzerland has identified and frozen 60 million francs ($69 million) belonging to former Tunisian dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and his family, 400 million francs ($455 million) belonging to former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and 360 million francs ($400 million) belonging to Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi.

"It was the No. 1 subject, not development aid or water or help with their new constitution or elections," Maurer told the Web site. "The question was always, 'When will you give us back the blocked money?'"