The court ruled that Abacha could not properly account for the hundreds of millions of francs he kept in 20 bank accounts under different names.
Last fall, an investigating judge orderd the confiscation of 350 million dollars seized by authorities from banks in the Bahamas and Luxembourg.
Abacha’s father is believed to have absconded with three billion francs from Nigerian government coffers between 1993 and 1999, when he died.
Much of the money ended up in Swiss bank accounts. Most of the 870 million francs frozen by government authorities in Switzerland has already been returned to the Nigerian government.
The case against Abacha’s son began in 1999 at the request of the Nigerian government.
He has already spent 561 days in preventive custody..
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