SWISS BANK EXEC CLEARED OF CHARGES

ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) A Swiss appeals court today cleared a
former bank director of money laundering, ruling that the alleged
crime was committed too long ago to be punishable.

Josef Oberholzer, a former vice director of the Union Bank of
Switzerland, was charged with laundering $150 million in Colombian
drug money the largest amount of laundered money Switzerland ever seized.

A lower court in 1997 threw out the most serious charges against
Oberholzer, but prosecutors appealed. The appeals court threw the case
out because the 10- year statute of limitations had expired.

Prosecutors had accused Oberholzer, 65, of accepting the drug money
despite knowing its origins and handling the account since the 1970s.

The funds, which appreciated in an account to $175 million, were
confiscated and split between the United States and
Switzerland.

"It is absolutely clear to me that I'm not a money launderer,"
Oberholzer said at the appeals court hearing. He said he acted
according to the rules prevailing at the time and had no indication
the money came from drug dealings.

Oberholzer handled the account of a Colombian couple, Julio and Sheila
Nasser.

The former banker, now retired, was arrested in 1994, the same day
police in western Switzerland arrested Mrs. Nasser and the Zurich
account was frozen.

Mrs. Nasser was extradited to the United States in 1995. A year later,
she was sentenced to 12 years in jail and fined $4 million by a Miami
federal judge for her part in smuggling 30 tons of cocaine and 3
million pounds of marijuana into the United States.