Banks, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Financial Services, Legislation

Savisaar denies any connection to the secret Swiss bank accounts, Postimees reported on Friday.

The withdrawal information was discovered by Eesti Ekspress when examining Swiss court documents concerning Savisaar's failed attempt to prevent the Estonian Prosecutor's Office from obtaining documents about said bank account.

The Swiss-based deposit in amount of 470,000 euros which was paid out in cash in 2011 to an unidentified person. The court papers go on further to say that the money was to be used for campaign contributions to a political party and for paying publisher's bills.

Lawyers representing Savisaar and Alexander Kofkin, a businessman whose name has come up in connection with the investigation, admit that the cash was paid out, the weekly reported on Thursday, as ERR writes.

Savisaar said in an interview last year that the case had to do with a fund, started in 1997 in Switzerland, to finance his publishing activity.

Honoring a Prosecutor's Office request, Switzerland provided documents at the end of 2012 concerning the fund and an 173,000-euro loan that Savisaar had acquired from a Panama-registered company, Pipa Business Corporation, in 2009. Savisaar had failed to declare the loan and was fined 575 euros by the police in 2010.

Echoing Savisaar's assertion, Center Party's Secretary General Priit Toobal send out a press release on behalf of the party last Friday saying that the Swiss fund was strictly related to publishing.

Kofkin, as mentioned, is also connected to the Savisaar's case discussed in media. Kofkin has been said as paying Savisaar for winning a tender for setting up a chain of sausage kiosks and for the right to build a hotel. Savisaar had taken out a personal loan of around 34,000 euros from Kofkin, ERR notes in the article on Monday.

Ohtuleht reported on Saturday that Kofkin had paid 192,000 euros into the Swiss fund in 2007 shortly before winning the kiosk tender.

Savisaar and Kofkin have undertaken considerable legal efforts to keep details of the fund and its account from reaching investigators.

In Switzerland, they unsuccessfully turned to the courts to block Swiss authorities from turning over the above mentioned documents to Estonian prosecutors. Legal steps have also been taken in Estonia.

Savisaar has denied owning any accounts or funds in Switzerland.

"I haven't any accounts in Switzerland. In this regard I differ from many enterprising businesspeople and politicians in Estonia," Savisaar was quoted as saying by Postimees.