Israeli businessman Beny Steinmetz went on trial on Monday in Geneva for allegedly forging documents and bribing the wife of Guinea’s former president in order to secure an iron ore mining concession in the West African country.
He has always denied his company, BSGR, paid multi-million dollar bribes to obtain iron ore mining exploration permits in southern Guinea in 2008.
Steinmetz and his co-defendants who include French national Frederic Cilins, a former adviser to BSGR was also accused of forging documents in order to conceal the bribes, according to a copy of the indictment seen by OCCRP.
The other co-defendant is Belgian national Sandra Merloni-Horemans who directed Onyx Financial Advisors, a Geneva-based firm which created companies used by BSGR in Guinea. Onyx established Pentler Holdings, a British Virgin Islands company through which bribes were allegedly paid to Mamadie Toure, Conte’s widow.
Steinmetz, 64, was previously sentenced in absentia to five years in prison by a court in Romania for money laundering.
Swiss prosecutors say Steinmetz paid about $10m (£7.4m) in bribes, in part through Swiss bank accounts, to gain the rights to Guinea’s iron ore deposits in the Simandou mountains.
The area is believed to contain the world’s largest untapped iron ore deposits.
“Beny Steinmetz never paid a cent to Mme. Mamadie Toure. Beny Steinmetz never signed forged documents,” Marc Bonnant, Steinmetz’s Geneva-based lawyer said.
Steinmetz faces up to 10 years in prison, according to an announcement by the Public Prosecutor’s Office filed last summer.
The criminal trial is the latest chapter in an international legal saga that has stretched more than a decade.
BSGR was awarded the lucrative Simandou rights in 2008 just weeks before the death of former president Lansana Conte.
But the rights were revoked in 2014 after a corruption probe launched by Guinea’s new president, Alpha Condé, found that BSGR had obtained them through bribery.
BSGR hit back with an arbitration claim against Guinea at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. In 2019, the arbitration was suspended pursuant to a private agreement.
