JГrГme Kerviel gets out of jail but told to stay put
PARIS: Jйrфme Kerviel, the former trader blamed for nearly \4.9 billion in losses at Sociйtй Gйnйrale, left a Paris prison cell Tuesday after more than five weeks in pretrial custody.
An appeals court ordered that Kerviel, 31, be released from prison while the investigation continues into whether he committed fraud. The judges placed Kerviel under judicial supervision, forbidding him to leave the Paris area during the inquiry. Kerviel surrendered his passport to the authorities in late January.
Lawyers involved in the case said Kerviel also had been ordered not to contact former colleagues at the bank, including 25 people named specifically.
Kerviel, looking freshly shaven and wearing a pink dress shirt and dark jacket, appeared relaxed and smiling as he left La Santй Prison in Paris on Tuesday afternoon accompanied by his lead lawyer, Elisabeth Meyer.
He waved to journalists gathered outside the prison gates but did not answer questions.
Investigators have been seeking to determine whether Kerviel had accomplices to his trades, which the bank says were unauthorized and exposed it to risk of nearly \50 billion, or $78 billion.
“I have maintained that there was no complicity,” Meyer said. “And the court has heard us.”
“I am very happy for Jйrфme,” she added. Kerviels lawyers had been seeking his release from pretrial custody since he was jailed on Jan. 8.
The Paris prosecutors office had opposed Kerviels release on the grounds that he could flee or interfere with witnesses or evidence in the case.
Legal experts said the courts decision was a recognition that Kerviel, who has admitted to fabricating trades and forging documents to hide his activities, could only harm his chances for leniency if he failed to cooperate.
Christopher Mesnooh, an international business lawyer in Paris, said: “It suggests that he is no longer considered a flight risk and will not compromise the ongoing investigation.”
When asked whether Kerviels release was a sign that the prosecutions case was weakening, Mesnooh said, “I think that would be reading too much into it.” “This does not represent any kind of implicit recognition that he is not guilty of what he has been accused of.”
Ulrika Weiss, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors, said they were satisfied with the conditions of Kerviels supervision and would not contest the courts decision. Sociйtй Gйnйrale also did not protest the ruling.
In an interview before the decision, Jean Veil, a bank lawyer, said: “The only reason to keep him there would be because there are things that still need to be done or avenues of the investigation that have not yet been pursued.”
He added: “Sociйtй Gйnйrale is a victim, and I believe victims should not cry out for vengeance but seek to obtain reparation of the damages.” Veil did not elaborate.
Lawyers who reviewed the courts decision said the list of individuals Kerviel was barred from contacting included his two immediate superiors, Eric Cordelle and Martial Rouyиre; the head of the banks equities and derivatives department, Luc Franзois; and the chief of its trading desk, Pierre-Yves Morlat.
Also on the list, the lawyers said, was Manuel Zabraniecki, a broker with the cash equity trading department who was held by the police for several hours of questioning last week. Another person was not: Moussa Bakir, who also brokered trades for Kerviel.
Bakir, a broker at Newedge, a former Sociйtй Gйnйrale affiliate previously known as Fimat, was held for two days last month and then released without charge. He remains a person of interest in the case.
A report released Feb. 20 by a panel of Sociйtй Gйnйrale board members concluded that lapses in the banks internal procedures for monitoring traders had made it possible for Kerviels fabrications to go undetected for nearly two years. The report also said the panel had found no evidence that Kerviel had accomplices.
The two judges leading the criminal inquiry, Renaud Van Ruymbeke and Franзoise Desset, have interviewed several of Kerviels former superiors and colleagues in an effort to determine whether there were others at the bank who might have known about his activities. Court documents obtained by the International Herald Tribune last week show that the testimony of Kerviel and his colleagues has sometimes been sharply contradictory on this point.
For example, the documents indicate that Kerviel said that an assistant on his trading desk conducted at least one fictitious transaction of \500 million or \600 million last spring using Cordelles computer as Cordelle looked on. But Cordelle denied the incident took place, asserting that at the time he did not have the software on his computer to execute trades.Kerviel also asserted that the trading assistant, Thomas Mougard, had knowingly executed fake trades on his behalf, the documents show. But Mougard testified that he believed the transactions were authentic.
