Terrorism Financing Blacklists At Risk

"We have an obligation to follow U.N. sanctions but also to follow human rights laws," said Christine Schraner, the Swiss Foreign Ministry's coordinator for counterterrorism. "We feel it's very important not to have a conflict."

Switzerland is one of a group of European countries -- others include Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Liechtenstein -- that have been lobbying the United Nations to change its policy. Among other recommendations, they have asked the Security Council to form an advisory panel of terrorism-financing experts that could review requests by individuals to have their names removed from the list.

"Our intention is not to weaken the system. To the contrary, we want to strengthen the sanctions system," Schraner said in an interview in Bern, the Swiss capital. "But if there's no fair and clear delisting process, then countries will be reluctant to put names on the list to begin with."

"We've been warning for the past two to three years about these court decisions, but we just were not taken seriously," she added.

U.S. officials said they were not persuaded. Adam J. Szubin, director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the U.S. Treasury agency that oversees blacklisting procedures, said permitting a court or outsiders to hear appeals would be "troubling," as well "antithetical" to the U.N. charter. He also said it would discourage countries from sharing sensitive intelligence about people on the list.

"The procedure is confidential, and confidential for a reason," he said.

'The Bush List'

The U.S. Treasury maintains its own blacklist of suspected terrorism financiers. Established shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks under an executive order signed by President Bush, the list of "specially designated global terrorists" originally focused on al-Qaeda but grew to include other groups.

The Treasury circulates its blacklist around the world; foreign officials commonly refer to it as "the Bush list." Although it overlaps with the U.N. blacklist, the Treasury cannot compel other countries to enforce it.

Differences between the lists can lead to confusion. Unlike the United Nations, the Treasury provides brief, public explanations of why individuals and groups are added to its blacklist.

The U.S. government also allows for appeals, either administratively or in the courts. Under the terms of the executive order authorizing the blacklist, the Treasury needs to show that it acted with "reasonable cause" in adding a name; it does not need to prove guilt.

In some cases, the Treasury has blacklisted alleged al-Qaeda supporters only after failing to persuade the U.N. Security Council to do so.

In January 2007, the U.S. government asked the Security Council to enforce sanctions against two South African citizens: Junaid Ismail Dockrat, a Johannesburg dentist, and his cousin, Farhad Ahmed Dockrat, a Muslim cleric. U.S. officials said there was evidence Farhad Dockrat had donated money to a charity that supported the Taliban and al-Qaeda. They said Junaid Dockrat paid travel costs for South Africans to train at al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan.

South Africa, a rotating member of the Security Council, placed an indefinite hold on the U.S. request, however, arguing that the evidence was insufficient. On Jan. 26, 2007, the Treasury added the men to the U.S. blacklist anyway, irritating South African officials.

In another case, the government of Saudi Arabia has pressured Britain to take action against Saad al-Fagih, a Saudi physician living in exile in London.

Officials in Riyadh accuse Fagih, who has called for the overthrow of the Saudi government, of supporting al-Qaeda. After Britain refused to take action against Fagih, Saudi Arabia persuaded the U.N. Security Council and the U.S. Treasury to add him to their lists in 2004. As a result, Britain was required to freeze his assets under the U.N. sanctions program.

Alexander Alvaro, a German member of the European Parliament who has criticized the selection process for the various blacklists, said it was clear in several cases that politics had overshadowed legitimate security concerns.

"Is the purpose to actually prevent terrorist attacks and cut off funding for terrorist organizations, or is it to please who it might serve to put them on the list?" he said.