A few weeks after Fatf called for Islamabad last year to do more to target the commander of the terror group, a case of three keys to let leaders faint due to inappropriate investigations.
Pakistan’s efforts to investigate and demand that the leaders of the terror group appointed to fight terror financing will be assessed during the meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) which began in Paris on Monday.
The Working Group and the FATF plenary meeting will continue until March 4, after multilateral financial supervisors will announce whether Pakistan must be maintained in the gray list, or a list of countries under monitoring, which was added to mid-2018. After the meeting in October last year, Fatf urged Pakistan to do more to investigate and demand leaders and commanders of terrorist groups that were not involved in terror financing.
President Fatf Marcus Pleyer said that Pakistan has taken “a number of important steps but need to show further that investigation and prosecution are being pursued against” senior leaders of the designated terror group.
Experts believe Pakistan will be maintained in the gray list and that there is little possibility that the country is included in the “blacklist”, which will require harsh economic sanctions and greater supervision of financial transactions. Only North Korea and Iran are currently included in the black list.
When Pakistan was added to the gray list in 2018, it was given a 27-point action plan by FATF to control money laundering and terror financing. In June 2021, Fatf asked Pakistan to implement another seven points action plan to overcome serious deficiencies related to money laundering.
FATF has said that Pakistan has “intended or mostly aimed” 30 of the 34 items in these two action plans.
Following the pressure of multilateral and western supervisors, Pakistan has arrested and demanded the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (leave) Hafiz Saeed and several maids in some cases of terror financing.
However, just a few weeks after Fatf asked Islamabad last year to do more to target the commander of the terror group, a case against three keys let the leaders – Malik Zafar Iqbal, Yahya Mujahid and Hafiz Saeed’s brother Abdul Rahman Makki – fainted due to investigations What is not right.
