Pilatus Bank Owner’s Request For Bail Denied By Manhattan Judge
Top-right circle: Judge Barbara Moses, Bottom-right circle: Pilatus Bank owner Ali Sadr Hasheminejad
A judge in Manhattan has turned down a request for bail by Pilatus Bank owner Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, who has been charged with laundering money and evading US sanctions on Iran.
Sadr entered a non-guilty plea and requested bail in a court hearing yesterday, offering to put up millions of dollars’ worth of cash and US real estate and to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet pending his trial, Bloomberg has reported.
However, Judge Barbara Moses rejected his request, arguing that his wealth and global connections mean there is a high-risk he could flee the United States.
During the hearing, Sadr’s lawyer Andrew Bauer argued his client was unlikely to flee as he has ties to the United States, saying he was married to a US citizen and is a legal resident of the country himself. He said his wife and children are currently living in London while their home in Washington DC was being renovated.
The Ta’ Xbiex headquarters of Pilatus Bank
Ali Sadr was arrested in Virginia last week on charges that he illegally funnelled over $115 million from Venezuela to Iranian-controlled companies via US and Swiss banks as part of a housing project in the South American country. According to the indictment by the US Department of Justice, Sadr made use of a St Kitts and Nevis passport and set up a network of companies in Switzerland, Turkey and the British Virgin Islands to hide the involvement of Iran in the transactions and therefore evade US sanctions on his home country.
Bauer said yesterday that the payments in question were not made for the benefit of Iran’s government and that his client’s father Mohammad Sadr Hashemi – one of the wealthiest men in Iran – was once imprisoned for opposing the Iranian government.
Following Ali Sadr’s arrest, the Malta Financial Services Authority froze Pilatus Bank’s assets and ordered the banker’s removal as director.
Last year, former Pialtus Bank employee Maria Efimova told now-assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia that she had seen declarations of trust in a safe in the bank showing that the secret Panama company Egrant belongs to the Prime Minister’s wife Michelle Muscat and that it holds two bank accounts – one with Pilatus and one with a Dubai bank. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat decried the story as the “biggest political lie in Malta’s history”.
Last week, it was revealed that Muscat, his wife Michelle and his chief of staff Keith Schembri had attended Ali Sadr’s wedding in Florence back in 2015.
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