-Caveat Lector-
Mystery Surrounds Safra Death
By IAN PHILLIPS
.c The Associated Press
MONTE CARLO, Monaco (AP) - It was business as usual Tuesday at the Monaco
branch of the Republic National Bank of New York underneath the gutted shell
of a penthouse where billionaire banker Edmond Safra died last week in an
arson attack.
But one day after American nurse Ted Maher was charged with starting the
blaze, mystery still surrounded events leading up to the Lebanese-born
financier's death in the luxury seaside building.
Did Safra really refuse to leave a locked bathroom where he then suffocated
despite pleas by his wife and firemen that he should come out?
And how did Maher, 41, described as mentally unstable, penetrate the inner
circle of a powerful banker who was so concerned about his safety that he
routinely recruited his bodyguards from Israel's elite security services?
``It's true that everyone still has many questions - the prosecutor, too,''
said Alexander Bruggmann, a spokesman for the Republic Bank in Geneva,
Switzerland. ``But it's now a police matter.''
On Tuesday, police and prosecutors would not comment on the case. After a
flurry of news conferences, Monaco reverted to official silence.
The nurse, Ted Maher, 41, first claimed that two hooded men had burst into
the penthouse before dawn Friday, attacked him, then set the deadly blaze. He
was treated at hospital for two stab wounds.
But on Monday with no evidence to support his version - and police patience
dwindling - Maher, who was just about to be released from the hospital,
confessed to inventing the whole scenario, said Monaco's chief prosecutor,
Daniel Serdet.
There had been no break-in, Maher said, according to Serdet. He stabbed
himself, and then started the fire that killed Safra and another American
nurse, Viviane Torrent, who also hid in the bathroom.
Maher said he didn't want to kill Safra: instead he was convinced he would
emerge the hero who rushed his employer to safety in a bathroom while fending
off the attackers. He set the fire to make the scene even more dramatic, he
told investigators.
He was charged with arson, jailed, and faces a life term.
Despite the confession, it could be months - if not longer - before the many
questions are answered.
Investigators say Safra was paralyzed by fear and refused to come out of the
locked bathroom, even though it was filling with smoke and firemen and his
wife were telling him it was safe to come out.
But a source with detailed knowledge of the case said that version was
``totally untrue.'' Safra had called police twice while coughing in the
smoke-filled bathroom and begged them to get him out, the source said.
An investigator in the Monaco prosecutor's office said Safra did call police
once to alert them to a break-in, but denied the fire had already started.
Secondly, could the firefighters have acted more quickly to extinguish the
fire, which started in a paper-filled wastebasket and devastated the whole
top floor?
Finally, it remained unclear how Maher, who Serdet said was mentally unstable
and took large doses of sedatives, could have got through security vetting.
Security was not something Safra took lightly.
His penthouse overlooking the Mediterranean was fortress-like, with
bulletproof doors and windows. Surveillance cameras were posted inside and
outside the building.
Reports have said Safra's security chief, absent at the time of the attack,
was Israeli-trained and that the banker had been protected by former Israeli
security agents since 1985.
Prosecutors said security was so tight at the penthouse that confident Safra
had instructed his chief guard to remain at his other residence: a
high-walled villa on the Cote d'Azur, once used as a summer home by Belgian
royalty.
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