Minister says over 700 ‘terror financing’ cases are near completion – Newspaper

ISLAMABAD: A few days after Pakistan escaped the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the government has revealed that, as part of the global surveillance action plan, more than 700 suspected cases of terrorist financing under investigation are about to be awarded.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Economic Affairs Minister Hammad Azhar, who was the main negotiator on behalf of the country at the FATF based in Paris last week, praised the success of his government in handling terrorism financing and money laundering problems. "We have initiated these cases of terrorist financing in the last six months," he said, claiming that Islamabad's efforts on that account were greatly appreciated at the meeting. But the minister did not elaborate the number of cases close to the "conviction".

The FATF demand of the Pakistani executive, according to Azhar, is to investigate cases of terrorist financing and gather information. "Prosecution and conviction are the domain of the judiciary," he said, adding that he did not want to comment since the "judiciary is independent" in Pakistan. "The ball is now on the court of the judiciary," he said.

However, the minister believed that the government would improve its prosecution in the coming days.

It established June 2020 as an indicative objective for the fulfillment of the 27 action plans that will leave the gray list. Pakistan will submit its report to the FATF International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) in January 2020, which will include all the actions that are being taken since September 2019.

The minister said that, on average, the countries included in the gray list took between two and a half years and three years to leave the gray list.

On the issue of prohibited suits, the minister said they would be treated in accordance with national laws. But it was necessary to strengthen the investigation and prosecution, he added. "We are working to further improve coordination between agencies to improve compliance," he said.

The minister said that more than 64,000 nonprofit organizations had been mapped so far.

Flanked by the head of the Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) Mansoor Siddiqui, the minister said the investigations were carried out on the basis of suspicious transactions that the FMU had received from different banks.

"More than 60 percent of suspicious transaction reports have been translated into intelligence reports," he said, adding that the reports became the main source of research on terrorist financing. He said the reports gradually became convictions, he said, without revealing the conviction data.

Perhaps Pakistan is the only country that goes through two FATF monitoring processes: one for its regional group, the Asia Pacific Group (APG), and the other for the International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) of the working group. The APG has made 40 recommendations to Pakistan, while the ICRG has suggested 27 compliance action plans.

At the same time, the compliance benchmark set for Pakistan is more difficult than other countries. The minister said it was mainly due to the nature of the high terrorist financing risks in Pakistan. "This is challenging and ambitious because our level of compliance is difficult compared to other countries," he said, adding that compliance with all these recommendations would help Pakistan mitigate the risks.

Azhar said the government pledged to complete compliance with the ICRG action plan by June 2020. He said difficult steps were taken in the ICRG plan, while APG recommendations were not difficult to meet since the position of Pakistan as an observer will remain until October 2020.

"Our priority is the ICRG action plan," although both monitoring processes would be parallel, he said, while expressing the hope that Pakistan's position on APG recommendations would improve in the next mutual evaluation report of the last one It arrived in October 2018.

In the event that compliance with the APG recommendations is not up to par, Pakistan can still obtain up to three years for the implementation of the action plan suggested by APG. He made it clear that Pakistan's position would improve when last year's data was considered in the next APG report.

The minister said that one of Pakistan's greatest achievements in the recent meeting in the FATF was that Islamabad's blocked attempt of some & # 39; circles & # 39; I wanted to merge the recommendations of the APF and the FATF ICRG, which could have made the situation difficult for Pakistan since the elements of action could have exceeded more than 100.

"It was not logical or feasible for Pakistan," he said, adding that it had been decided that the country would obtain the entire APG period for compliance, which was also a success for Pakistan.

The minister did not reveal the names of other countries, but said it was ironic that India has exaggerated its role in using an international technical forum for political purposes. "We will not allow any country to use such forums to obtain political mileage," said the minister.

Hammad said Pakistan's position on the risks of terrorism and money laundering had improved. In developing other steps, he said that coordination between agencies had been established, that a risk-based monitoring framework had been established, while a risk-based research strategy had been prepared for law enforcement agencies. "Now is the time to implement all these measures," he said.

Directed by the Minister of Economic Affairs, a FATF coordination committee was established and a FATF secretariat was established.

The minister said the provisional government had agreed to implement ICRG Action Plan 27 in a period of 15 months. "We have made significant progress in the implementation of most of these action plans," he said, adding that further progress would be seen in the coming months.

However, the minister admitted that the procedures in the FATF were confidential. "We have to maintain the confidentiality of the FATF," he said, adding that the discussion in the FATF was based primarily on technical reports.

Posted on Dawn, October 24, 2019