THE disputed gold certificate that has put an Australian lawyer into the dock of a London court has an extraordinary history, involving an Indonesian dictator, a Swiss bank and a large supporting cast of shady characters in Australia, Britain and Germany.
The certificate alleges that a "Mr Patrick J. Hillery" was once legal holder of more than £7 billion worth of gold. One of the lawyers involved in the case has asked the former president, Dr Patrick J. Hillery, if the document refers to him, but Dr Hillery has denied all knowledge of it.
Even by the murky standards of the international gold trade, the 740 metric tonnes of gold named in the certificate has been the focus of a remarkable catalogue of intrigue and double dealing.
Documents in the case name the current legal holder of the gold as Dr Edison Damanik, an elderly Indonesian lawyer based in Jakarta. Dr Damanik, who is convalescing in Western Sumatra following a throat ailment is unavailable for comment. But sources within the gold trade have identified him as the former legal representative to the family of Sukarno, the Indonesian leader who was replaced in 1968 and died in 1970.
The gold may be part of Sukarno's "Revolution Fund" set up to finance Indonesia's war efforts in West Papua and Borneo during the early 1960s.
The certificate alleges that a "Mr Hillery" became legal holder of the gold in 1981 and that he transferred trusteeship to Dr Damanik 10 years later. The bearer of a gold certificate is, in theory, entitled to claim the gold named on the certificate, and it is unusual for certificates to be replaced even if ownership chants hands.
According to other documents Dr Damanik granted Mr Peter Johnston, a lawyer based in Gold Coast in Australia, power of attorney to sell the gold in February of last year. Mr Johnston travelled to London later that month to meet a prospective buyer, but he was arrested on February 14th 1995, after he deposited the gold certificate in National Westminster Bank for safekeeping.
NatWest notified the police after Union Bank of Switzerland where the gold is alleged to be held, informed it that the certificate was false. Mr Johnston was charged by British authorities with uttering a false instrument with the intention of damaging the interests of others and was ordered to surrender his passport pending trial.
The certificate names "Mr Patrick J. Hillery" as legal holder, and the same name, sometimes spelt "Patric", also appears on other documents relating to the gold. Mr Johnston's solicitor wrote to Dr Hillery last November, asking him to confirm that a signature on one of the documents was his. Dr Hillery replied that it was not.
Mr Johnston, who suffers from a heart complaint, looked pale and drawn when he appeared briefly in a London court recently to plead not guilty to fraud charges. He made no comment after the hearing, but his solicitor said he was confident he could prove that Mr Johnston believed the certificate to be genuine, even if the prosecution persuaded the court that it is a forgery.
Dr Hillery has told The Irish Times he was puzzled when he received a letter from the solicitor last November because he had never had any contact with the gold trade. He had never heard of Dr Damanik.
Dr Hillery gave The Irish Times copies of two letters, one from Mr Johnston himself and the other from his solicitor. He also provided an example of his signature, which bears no similarity to a signature on the documents sent to him by Mr Johnston's solicitor.
Despite Mr Johnston's arrest, the Swiss bank's dismissal of the certificate as a forgery and Dr Hillery's denial of any knowledge of the gold, efforts to sell it continued until the beginning of last month.
Because the sale of such a large amount of metal would depress the value of gold on the international market, any deal had to be conducted secretly.
Shortly before Mr Johnston's arrest, he had made contact with a Berlin firm of gold dealers called Metalcom, which offered to find a buyer for the gold. Metalcom started negotiating with Mr Bruce Mead, a British dealer with contacts with a large European bank.
According to extensive correspondence which The Irish Times has seen, Mr Mead came close to buying the gold two months ago, outlining a list of conditions to Mr Johnston and Metalcom for the completion of the deal.
Mr Mead withdrew abruptly one month later and told The Irish Times his decision was based on the Union Bank of Switzerland's refusal to authenticate the gold certificates.
Metalcom claims Mr Meal withdrew to make way for another buyer who sought to cut the German company out of the deal. Metalcom had been promised a commission of 0.125 per cent of the value of the gold and refused to return the certificates and documents to Dr Damanik until it received compensation for the work it had done for the past year.
At this point, events took a sinister turn, with two of the firm's partners alleging they had received late night visits from groups of men who forced their way into their homes, demanding the return of documents.
One of the partners claims the intruders identified themselves as former members of the East German secret service. As a former officer in the Stasi himself, he judged that they were telling the truth.
Mr Johnston's trial has been set for July, but his solicitor has told The Irish Times he has no plans to call Dr Hillery as a witness.
