Pakistan remains on FATF’s grey list

Pakistan to remain in grey list of The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for failing to adequately investigate and prosecute senior leaders and commanders of UN-designated terrorist groups. The decision was announced at the conclusion of the multilateral watchdog’s five-day virtual plenary meeting under the German presidency of Marcus Pleyer. FATF noted that Pakistan had completed all but one of the 27 items in the action plan drawn up for the country to tackle money laundering and terror financing when it was placed in the list of nations under increased monitoring or the grey list in 2018.

“The FATF encourages Pakistan to continue to make progress to address as soon as possible the one remaining CFT (counter-terrorist financing)-related item by demonstrating that TF (terrorist financing) investigations and prosecutions target senior leaders and commanders of UN designated terrorist groups,” the body said in an announcement. Experts pointed out the sole remaining action item was significant as Pakistan has given few indications that it plans to investigate and prosecute leaders and commanders of all the eight terror groups that have been named by FATF in the past – the Taliban, Haqqani Network, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation, al-Qaeda and Islamic State.

So far, Pakistani authorities have only investigated and prosecuted senior leaders of the LeT and JuD, including LeT founder Hafiz Saeed and several of his senior aides. Saeed and a few of his aides are currently serving sentences given to them after they were found guilty in a string of terror financing cases last year. However, no action has been taken against leaders of the JeM, such as its chief Masood Azhar, despite the group being linked to several high-profile terror attacks in recent years,