Announcement
Any member of the Paris process who has received a letter and invoice (Faktura Nr. 0633) dated March 7, 2006, from Henning Witte requesting payment of 8.199,95 SEK for the time period of 2002-05-20 to 2006-03-07, please be advised to take it straight to the local police office and file a complaint for extortion.
The previous conduct of Henning Witte has shown that he is an international con artist who should be arrested on sight.
Henning Witte is demanding money from vulnerable relatives of Estonia victims who are badly informed and gullible.
Some relatives may think that Witte is helping them - wrong! Witte is not helping anybody but himself.
Witte is still withholding a sum of 100.000 euros that he was supposed to pay his former partner Eric Schmill years ago for his court and lawyer's fees related to the case.
It is important to bear in mind that Henning Witte resigned from representing ELA for more than two years ago on January 11, 2004 (see Open Letter to Henning Witte).
http://www.elaestonia.org/index.php?kat=157
Witte confirmed his decision to resign from his duties three times during ELA board meeting. Bitter with the situation, he mailed out a letter in March 2004 about ELA chairman, Helje Kaskel, with one purpose only - to damage her reputation and scare away the Swedish members of the group who had been trusting Kaskel, a widow of Urmas Alender. To Estonian media, he even blamed Kaskel of being an agent of Swedish Military Intelligence (MUST).
http://www.elaestonia.org/eng/index.php?module=lingid&link=169
Kaskel discovered that for two years since the forming of ELA in June 2002, Witte had maintained a non-existent working relationship with Eric Schmill, the lawyer representing the litigation members in Paris.
In order not to lose the control over the Paris process, Witte suddenly engaged himself in the process again in May 2004, informing the members of the litigation that if they wanted to continue with the case in Paris, they had to immediately give him the new power-of-attorney.
Using the situation where information about the case is hard to find, 27 out of 1200 relatives sent off their new power-of-attorney forms giving their trust to Witte.
Together with Elisabet Nilsson, Witte' s willing helper and former vice chairman of ELA who resigned together with Witte two years ago, they now have engaged themselves in new adventures.
This time Witte's invoice is more revealing than ever:
Fee 180.000 SEK
(how many hours of work, when, what did he achieve, what is his hourly fee?)
Tax 32.500
Telephone, mailing 1450.00
Rynair Nov 03 221.25
Rynair Jan 05 1.965,00
Rynair Jan 06 464,00
Hotel (Where?) 1.200,00
Bus 310,00
Taxi 385,00
SNCF train 75,00
SNCF train 103,30
Carnet train 122,00
Hotel 1.564,00 (115 GBP - A swing to England?)
Hotel (Where?) 1.042,00
Grand Total 221.398,55
Wonderful! Were the 27 relatives aware what was done in their name? Did they approve of these expenses or was the only other person involved Witte' s disciple, Elisabet Nilsson, an accountant by profession?
Today the Swedish relatives are faced with disappointment over an unexpected bill, each 8.199,95 SEK and what have they gotten?
Nothing. Furthermore, no basic contract exists between Henning Witte and his clients. In a situation like this, the lawyer can do anything he wants.
Witte is also responsible for a very serious matter that has arisen to the judge's attention. Namely, Henning Witte has persistently withheld the original ISG (Internationa Support Group) documents from Eric Schmill and the ELA chairman.
Elisabet Nilsson obtained the copies of the essential documents after she resigned from ELA - from a former ISG secretary Rolf Sörman.
Repeated requests by Sörman to return the documents to the archives have been ignored by Nilsson. Witte and Nilsson, by sitting on the personal information of the 1200 relatives now needed by the Paris court, think that they are in control and can write invoices any time they think.
This interference has to come an end. The behavior of Witte and Nilsson is criminal.
An earlier attempt by Witte & Nilsson to cheat the insurance companies out of 163,055 SEK, when ELA was founded in June 2002, was rejected by the insurance companies. The money reserved for the case in meant for the case in Paris.
Nilsson alone attested to the substantial sum of 163,055 SEK (for April 2002-September 2002) on Sept 3, 2002 without question. ELA rules, which Witte helped draft, permit either Nilsson or Kaskel to sign such documents, but require that the other is informed in writing. Nilsson failed to inform the chairman of ELA of this huge invoice, a clear violation of organization rules.
Since Witte has been very slow and selective about whose original forms he is transferring to Paris, the judge has postponed the next scheduled court date of June 2, 2006 so that the paperwork would be finally completed.
This is an absurd situation where everything goes through one bottleneck - Henning Witte who is not even a letigimate representative of 1200 claimants. It does not help the situation that the judge is demanding to see the documents of 1200 litigation members scanned which is a very time consuming and expensive task.
This situation needs to be addressed immediately so the legal and procedural foot-dragging in Paris courts will come to an end. These delaying tactics only behoove Bureau Veritas, one of the defendants of the case, who is actually behind the judge's decision to see the original paperwork scanned.
Who is calling the shots here?
September 19, 2006 marks the tenth year anniversary since the Estonia process was initiated in Paris. What do the laws of basic human rights say about this?
A litigation that has not moved into the essence of the case - discovery - and thus has produced no truth in 10 years, means no justice.
To this day we do not know how Estonia sank and what happened to our loved ones; who is responsible for the biggest maritime disaster in Europe after WWII?
Justice delayed is justice denied.
If you have any questions, please contact Helje Kaskel at: ela_estonia@yahoo.se
For updates please visit www.elaestonia.org | 
2006.04.24 Meddelande
