More pressure on Pak to plug terror fund flow

Pakistan on Friday came under renewed international pressure to implement the financial sanctions imposed by the United Nations on terrorists and terror outfits designated by the Security Council of the international organisation.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an inter-governmental organisation to coordinate global efforts to combat money-laundering and terror financing, asked Pakistan to act against people and entities working for terrorists and terror outfits designated by the UN, including by preventing raising and moving of funds, identifying and freezing movable and immovable assets, and prohibiting access to funds and financial services.

The FATF had last year put Pakistan on its Grey List — officially a list of “jurisdictions with strategic deficiencies in its legal regime to check money-laundering and terrorist financing”. Pakistan, however, in June 2018 made a commitment to work with the intergovernmental organisation to plug the loopholes.

The FATF, which had its plenary in Paris from Wednesday to Friday, reviewed the progress made by Pakistan in squeezing the flow of fund to terror organizations, including the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, which have bases in the neighbouring country and carried out several terror strikes in India.

The international organisation also condemned the February 14 killing of over 40 Central Reserve Police Force personnel in a terrorist attack at Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir.

The FATF noted that Pakistan Government made “limited progress” on actions it promised to complete by January. It urged Islamabad to swiftly complete implementation of its planned actions, particularly the ones which were to be completed by May. The international agency would again review the performance of Pakistan in June.

“Pakistan has revised its TF (terror financing) risk assessment. However, it does not demonstrate a proper understanding of the TF risks posed by Da'esh (ISIS), AL-Qaida, JuD (Jamat-ud-Dawa), FIF (Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation), LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba), JeM (Jaish-e-Mohammad), HQN (Haqqani Network) and persons affiliated with the Taliban,” the FATF said in a statement.

It also mentioned a 10-point action plan which Pakistan would have to implement to stop flow of fund to the terrorists and to be taken out of the “grey list”.

The FATF suggested that Pakistan must make it sure that the remedial actions and sanctions are applied in cases of violations of the laws against money laundering and terrorism financing, that competent authorities are cooperating and taking action to identify and take enforcement action against illegal money or value transfer services and that authorities are identifying cash couriers and enforcing controls on illicit movement of currency and understanding the risk of cash couriers being used for funding terror organisations.