Govt to make more changes to terror law to comply with FATF
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani government has proposed legal changes to its anti-terror laws for the third time in nine months to meet the requirements of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), The Express Tribune newspaper reported on Sunday.
More than six amendments are recommended in the AntiTerrorism Act of 1997 that also seeks to promptly and effectively investigate terror financing cases and ensure strict punishments, the report said.
The draft proposes removal of restriction of court’s permission for seeking financial information from banks and recommends such powers for the deputy inspector general of the police to ensure a swift investigation into the terror financing cases.
It is the third draft bill that the government has proposed since November last year. Earlier, two bills were also introduced to amend the ATA 1997. The first was introduced in November last year while the second ATA amendment bill was introduced in January 2020.
Pakistan is in the process of amending eight laws to satisfy the FATF – the global terror financing watchdog– which is likely to meet in October to review Islamabad’s case. It has been placed in the grey list since June 2018 but has won multiple extensions to fully implement the 27-point action plan to exit the list.
According a United Nations’ 26th report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team concerning ISIL, al-qaida and associated individuals and entities, Pakistani nationals remain at the leadership levels in terror groups such as al-qaida in the Indian subcontinent, Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant - Khorasan and Tehrik-e-taliban Pakistan. Many of them are yet to be blacklisted, the report added.
PAK VIOLATING AFGHAN BORDER, UNSC TOLD Afghanistan has written to the UN Security Council over continued “violations” of its territory by Pakistani military forces and said it will ask the 15-nation UN body to take necessary measures and actions to end them if the situation is not de-escalated.