Manila | Tuesday
THE Philippine government will obtain a court order to freeze the assets of the Muslim Abu Sayaf kidnap-for-ransom group as ordered by US President George Bush, officials said on Tuesday.
“The freeze of assets must go through court process,” President Gloria Arroyo’s representative Rigoberto Tiglao said.
Bush issued an executive order on Monday instantly freezing the assets of the Abu Sayaf and 26 other terror-linked groups and individuals.
He also warned institutions abroad that their US assets may be frozen if they also did not block monies held by the 27.
The Abu Sayaf allegedly received start-up funds from prime terror suspect Osama bin Laden before the group, based in the southern Philippines, blossomed into Asia’s most deadly kidnap group.
The government itself cannot freeze the assets of the group unless it has a court order because of the country’s strict banking secrecy laws.
Similarly, under present laws, regulators or police cannot inspect bank accounts without court orders.
“We cannot freeze now. We still have the secrecy of bank deposits. Unless there is a court order, only then can we garnish the Abu Sayaf assets,” justice department undersecretary Jose Calida said.
Calida said under a proposed law against money laundering now being debated by Congress, the bank accounts of suspected terror groups or terrorists could be frozen for 10 days to enable a task force to file a court order.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) — a Paris-based anti-money laundering body set up by the Group of Eight industrialised countries — had given the Philippines until September 30 to outlaw money laundering or face sanctions.
Legislators are racing against time to pass the law.
Officials said the Abu Sayaf acquired between 200-million pesos (four million dollars) and 500-million pesos ransoming off kidnap victims.
Last year they kidnapped scores of Asians, Europeans, as well as two South Africans and released them after hefty ransoms were paid. The group is now holding at least two American and 16 Filipino captives. Reacting to President Bush’s order, National Security Adviser Roilo Golez said: “We are doing our own probe and it’s all in the spirit of cooperation.”
Military representative Lieutenant Colonel Jose Mabanta said Manila was certain “that communication and correspondence exist between the Abu Sayaf and the bin Laden group but we are uncertain as to the extent of the financial and material support.”
Philippine authorities have said the Saudi-born militant bin Laden, who Washington has named as the prime suspect in the September 11 terror attacks in the United States, had trained the Abu Sayaf guerillas.
Intelligence reports say a Muslim foundation called the International Islamic Relief Organization had channelled funds to the Abu Sayaf and other guerrillas operating in the south in the late 1980s to the mid-1990s.
The relief organisation was linked to a brother-in-law of bin Laden, Mohammad Jamal Khalifa.
In 1995, a suspect in the World Trade Centre bombing, Abdul Hakim Murad, was arrested in the Philippines and extradited to the US. His accomplice Ramzi Yousef was also in the Philippines was later arrested in Pakistan and convicted for the bombing that left six people dead.
Parouk Hussin, the presidential advisor for Filipino Muslim affairs, said some of those who attended training given by a school set up by Khalifa could have joined the Abu Sayaf.
However, foreign department representative Victoriano Lecaros said international links with the Abu Sayaf could have fizzled out after 1995.
“There are those who feel the link is there although it is not as before,” he said. – AFP