South Africa has been informed that more South Africans are to be listed on the United Nations Security Council list of terror suspects, Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Aziz Pahad said on Wednesday.
Pahad did not say which UN member country was planning the listing, when it would be done or how many South Africans would be listed.
He said only that the government has been informed that more individuals are to be listed with the UN as terror suspects with alleged links to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda and the deposed Taliban in Afghanistan.
He said the government is trying to establish their names.
”We have to talk to the people who have been listed to get their view about the allegations made against them … to seek clarifications and seek answers from them,” he said.
The United States on Friday listed Junaid Dockrat, a Johannesburg dentist, and his cousin, Pretoria cleric Farhad Ahmed Dockrat, as suspected terrorists with links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
The South African government asked the UN to hold back on putting them on its list of terror suspects.
However, an unnamed US official believed South Africa will agree to the listing after studying US evidence and intelligence on them.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said it was ”unlikely” the two men will be the only South Africans listed, expressing the belief that more names could follow.
”If we get sufficient evidence and intelligence, we’ll do what’s necessary,” the official said.
Last Friday, the US publicly accused the Dockrats of aiding the globally recognised al-Qaeda fundraiser, the al-Akhtar Trust, and another organisation by facilitating travel for people in al-Qaeda camps.
The US listing prohibited any transactions between them and US nationals and companies and froze any assets they might hold under US jurisdiction.
It is alleged that Farhad Dockrat gave the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan R400 000 in 2001 to forward to the al-Akhtar Trust, which is listed by both the US and UN as a terror organisation backing al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.
It is alleged that Junaid Dockrat contacted al-Qaeda operations chief Hamza Rabi’a in 2004 to coordinate the travel of South Africans to Pakistan to train with al-Qaeda.
The naming of individuals takes place only when there are thousands of pages of evidence against them, the official explained, but said not all this information can be made public as it is ”intelligence heavy”.
It is a ”misconception” that names are never removed from the list. ”We ask: ‘Have they renounced terrorism and are they still a threat?’ And if they are not, we want them off the list.” — Sapa