India for cooperation between FATF, UN to combat terror-financing

United Nations, October 10

India has strongly condemned any direct or indirect financial assistance to terrorists and terror groups by nations that enables them to pursue their activities, including in defending criminal cases against them.

Speaking at a General Assembly Sixth Committee meeting on ‘Measures to eliminate international terrorism’, First Secretary/Legal adviser in India’s Permanent Mission to the UN Yedla Umasankar on Wednesday called for increased cooperation between the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the UN to combat terror financing.

“The flow of resources meant to produce terror is required to be stopped by states for which collective inter-state efforts are required at regional and sub-regional levels. The FATF has a significant role in setting global standards for preventing and combating terrorist financing and the UN needs to increase cooperation with such bodies,” Umasankar said.

He said India “strongly” condemns “direct or indirect financial assistance given to terrorist groups or individual members thereof by states or its machineries, to pursue their activities, including in defending the criminal cases involving terrorist acts against them”.

India’s comments come as Pakistan had requested the UN Security Council’s anti-terror committee to allow Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed to withdraw money from his bank account for basic expenses.

Saeed, a UN-designated terrorist on whom the US has placed a USD 10 million bounty, was arrested on July 17 this year in a terror financing case in Pakistan. He was listed under UN Security Council Resolution 1267 in December 2008.

According to UN provisions, all states are required to freeze the funds and other financial assets or economic resources of designated individuals. The resolution also provides for states to sanction basic expenses of the designated individuals if there is no-objection over it.

Umasankar said India strongly believed that terrorism could be countered by combined international efforts, stressing that the UN is best suited for developing this transnational effort. He lamented that current measures to combat terrorism are having little impact on the ground. PTI