Istanbul: Former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s assets has been frozen by Turkey with the decision by the U.N. Security Council said the government on Thursday.
It did not reveal the value of the assets and how much Saleh was believed to hold in Turkey.
The investigators appointed by the U.N.-have suspected that Saleh is believed to have as much as $60 billion, equivalent to Yemen’s annual GDP, during his long rule, and colluding in a takeover by the
Houthi militia in 2014.
They also suspect that most of his wealth is in the form of property, cash, shares, gold and other valuable commodities which has been transferred abroad under false names or the names of others holding the assets on his behalf.
Saleh enjoyed the loyalty of sections of the
Houthi armed forces backed by Iran as the head of Yemen’s General People’s Congress.
Last year Riyadh, with a coalition of Arab and Muslim nations, launched an Arab military intervention to confront as anticipated Iranian expansionism in its southern neighbor.
Most of the Sunni Turkey is allied with Saudi Arabia in Yemen, where forces loyal to Yemen’s Saudi-backed president are fighting the Houthis.