In a court statement, the judge mentioned that Abba Abacha’s $350 million assets were being held by his criminal organisation and seized through international assistance in Luxembourg and the Bahamas, News Agency of Nigeria reported.

The Swiss authorities said they pursued Abba Abacha for six years before extraditing him from Germany in 2005.

The Geneva judge also condemned a Monaco-based financial intermediary whose name was not given, for supporting the Abacha organisation. He is required to pay $9.9 million, a sum which corresponds to the illicit gains he made while handling stolen funds.

The Abacha saga may not end here. If the parties accept the decision of the investigating judge, the judgement comes into force but if they reject it the case will go to court, the statement said.

The Swiss legal proceedings against the Abacha family were opened in 1999 following a request from the Nigerian authorities.

General Abacha, who died in June 1998, is suspected of having siphoned over $3 billion from the Nigerian treasury between November 1993 and June 1998 – the years he ruled the country.

Some $700 million of his loot, which was stashed in Swiss banks, have been returned by Switzerland to the Nigerian authorities.