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BloombergIceland’s parliament must decide whether to charge leading members of the country’s 2008 cabinet with negligence that contributed to the island’s banking collapse after a committee recommended they be indicted.
The parliamentary committee will ask the Reykjavik-based legislature to indict former Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde, former Foreign Minister Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir, former Finance Minister Arni M. Mathiesen and former Business Minister Bjorgvin G. Sigurdsson, according to a written motion delivered to lawmakers yesterday. Should parliament vote in favor of indictment, it will be the first time a special court created in 1905 to oversee such cases will be convened.
The 2008 banking collapse forced the island, the world’s fifth-richest per capita a year earlier, to turn to the International Monetary Fund for help and sent the krona plunging as much as 80 percent against the euro in the offshore market. The government of Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, in office since January last year, is struggling to rebuild the crippled economy as Icelanders come to terms with spiralling debt burdens and incomes reduced by a fifth last year. Parliament may reach a decision on the indictments within days, Sigurdardottir told reporters in Reykjavik yesterday.
The recommendation to charge Haarde, who was prime minister from 2006 until the beginning of 2009, was based on “violations committed from February 2008 through the beginning of October of the same year, by intent or gross neglect, mostly violations against the laws of ministerial responsibility” as well as breaches of the Icelandic penal code, the committee said.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-11/iceland-parliament-committee-seeks-to-indict-ex-premier-for-role-in-crisis.html
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