Turkish businessman sues Swiss Bank over Ottoman gold

PanARMENIAN.Net - A businessman from the eastern province of Elazığ has filed a lawsuit against the Swiss bank Credit Suisse claiming an inheritance of some 800,000 pieces of Ottoman gold and jewelry in its vaults worth close to $300 million, Hurriyet Daily News reported.

Some 64 lawyers are engaged in the suit on behalf of Sait Ali Bayrak, who said “the priceless treasure was transferred to the Swiss bank by his father Hasan Bayrak to ensure its safety shortly before Turkey’s 1980 military coup on Sept. 12.”

“Hasan Bayrak earned through honest labor the treasure, which was no trophy,” his son Sait Ali Bayrak said.

The gold is worth some $283 million and weighs about six tons.

Officials at the Turkish branch of Credit Suisse declined to comment over Bayrak’s claims and said their headquarters in Switzerland was working on the matter.

“The party to the bank’s contract is the owner of the bank account. The concept of having material rights defines only the potential legal relationship between the person leaving the inheritance behind, or to be more precise, the account owner and the inheritors,” an official statement sent by Credit Suisse on Oct. 12 to Bayrak read. “The bank is not one of the parties. For that reason, the bank is not concerned with complicated situations that may exist between its customers and other third persons over any contract.”

Sait Ali Bayrak said he was going to submit a file regarding the matter to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan within the coming days.

He had not yet decided over how the inheritance would be utilized if he won the suit, Bayrak said, adding that Turkey would also benefit from the assets in question.