Motions to dismiss
Transfers of funds
Disrupting the financial networks of terror
UK reluctant to close Interpal - security sources
UPDATE: - Controversial 'Respect' MP George Galloway
is donating his fee for appearing in
a UK TV reality show ,Celebrity Big Brother, to Interpal.
a UK TV reality show ,Celebrity Big Brother, to Interpal.
NatWest accused of holding accounts for terrorist group
06/01/2006
Families of Americans killed or injured in Palestinian terrorist attacks have filed a lawsuit accusing the NatWest Bank of maintaining an account for a US-designated terrorist group that allegedly funnels money to the militant group Hamas. National Westminster Bank is owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland.
The lawsuit alleges that the bank provides services for the UK-based charity group Interpal.
“America can’t allow banks to do business in this country while providing financial services to Specially Designated Global Terrorists overseas,” Gary Osen, a lawyer for the families, said in a statement.
The lawsuit is an amended version of one filed last year in US federal court on behalf of Tzvi Weiss, an American student wounded in a 2003 bus bombing in Jerusalem. It was amended to add more plaintiffs and seeks unspecified damages.
The suit was filed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn on behalf of dozens of people wounded in the attacks or relatives of people who were killed in suicide bombings in Israel in which Hamas claimed responsibility.
The plaintiffs, many of whom live in the New York area, are being represented by a group of lawyers, including Gary M. Osen of Oradell, N.J. In seeking damages, they claim that NatWest provided financial services to groups that raise funds for Hamas long after President Clinton listed it as a terrorist organization in 1995.
The suit cites financial transfers made to Palestinian community groups in the West Bank and Gaza through NatWest accounts held by a British charity, the Palestinian Relief & Development Fund, which calls itself Interpal. The suit claims that Interpal collected donations using credit card transfers through NatWest bank, and that NatWest was aware that Interpal had been identified by the State Department as a fund-raiser for Hamas.
The suit is "without merit," said Mike Keohane, a spokesman for NatWest, which the Royal Bank of Scotland acquired in a 2000 merger.
Mr. Keohane, who spoke by phone from Edinburgh, also said that the United Kingdom charity commission had conducted two investigations of Interpal, in 1996 and 2003, to determine if it had links to Hamas. He said the commission had twice "found no evidence of wrongdoing" by the charity.
The suit arises from sharply differing views in the United States and Europe of the network of community groups and charities that operate in the Palestinian territories. While some authorities in Britain have cleared Interpal of suspicion of aiding violence in Israel, President Bush officially listed the group as a Hamas fund-raiser on Aug. 22, 2003, and ordered the freezing of its assets in the United States.
Tzvi Weiss, a 20-year-old trainee rabbi, said in a lawsuit filed in September at a U.S. District Court in New York that he suffered torn eardrums and a cut hand when a suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus in Jerusalem in August 2003, killing 13 people and injuring more than 130. Another 14 families who suffered death or injury in 10 separate bombings and shootings in Israel between March 2002 and August 2003 have joined the suit, according to an amended complaint filed yesterday. Hamas claimed responsibility for all of the attacks.
Credit Lyonnais
LCL, a unit of Credit Agricole, faces a similar lawsuit filed at U.S. District Court in New Jersey by Moses Strauss the same day as Weiss's original claim.
Strauss, 23, injured in the same attack as Weiss, says in his lawsuit that LCL, which used to be known as Credit Lyonnais, provided financial services to Le Comite de Bienfaisance et de Secours aux Palestinians, even though the French charity was alleged to have links with Hamas.
"Our assessment is that a staggering amount of terror financing travels through ordinary western banking channels,'' Gary Osen, Strauss's Ordell, New Jersey-based attorney, said in a telephone interview from Israel. ``We believe that the banks knowingly facilitate terror financing.''
Osen is also acting in the case against NatWest.
NatWest will file documents on Jan. 26 2006 seeking dismissal of the Weiss case, according to a letter sent by the bank's lawyer, Lawrence B. Friedman of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, to Judge Charles P. Sifton, who is hearing the case.
Judge Mary L. Cooper also gave Credit Lyonnais lawyers Coughlin Duffy LLP permission on Dec. 27 to seek to have Strauss's suit dismissed.
``We are confident'' about the case, said Arnaud Loubier, a spokesman for LCL in Paris, in a phone interview. ``We did everything we had to do according to the rules.''
LCL closed the charity's account in September 2003, one month after the U.S. declared CBSP a terrorist organization, Loubier said. The lender began trying to close the accounts in early 2002, when it started having doubts about the group, he said.
The NatWest case is Weiss v. National Westminster Bank Plc, 05- CV-4622, at U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York.
The Credit Agricole case is Strauss v. Credit Lyonnais SA, 3.05-cv- 04725-MLC-TJB at US District Court, District of New Jersey.
Below is taken from an Israeli website
Overview
The following documents deal with transfers of funds from Interpal to the Ramallah-Al-Bireh Charity Committee on September 25, 2001. They were found with other documents dealing with transfers of funds from foundations and bodies affiliated with Hamas in Europe and Arab countries.(16)
16. The file, containing various documents, was found in the Society’s offices in Ramallah on January 20, 2004.
The documents deal with the transfer of funds for employing teachers (both male and female) in centers for Qur’an memorization maintained by the Committee and for the establishment of a library in El-Bireh’s Grand Mosque.(17) The centers, like the mosques, serve Hamas as focal points for indoctrinating radical Islamic messages and preaching hatred of Israel and the Jewish people. The mosques also serve as centers for recruiting terrorists and dispatching them on missions, and during the ongoing violent Palestinian-Israeli confrontation wanted terrorists and weapons have often been found hidden in them.
17. The most important mosque in the Ramallah-Al-Bireh district, also known as the ‘Abd al-Nasser mosque. It is a hotbed of Hamas activity, and like other mosques and similar Islamic institutions, officially under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Religious Endowments and Affairs. One of the Palestinian Security apparatus’ documents explicitly stated that the mosques in the Ramallah-Al-Bireh district are under Hamas control.
The following two pages from a pamphlet published in 2001 illustrate the indoctrination received at the centers for Qur’an memorization. It was published by one of the Qur’an memorization centers and found in the offices of the Ramallah-Al-Bireh Charity Committee ( January 20, 2004).
The pamphlet is entitled Thirty Ways to Enter Heaven [taken
from] the Qur’an and the Sunnah. The
fifth way appears on pages 8 and
9:
"Jihad for the sake of Allah by
fighting for Allah with one’s soul and money.”
| Who
subsidizes the Hamas-run Ramallah-Al-Bireh Charity Committee? |
|||
| |
The Ramallah-Al-Bireh Charity Committee Sponsoring Institutions |
||
|
Serial No. |
Name |
Address |
Notes |
|
1 |
Internal sponsors |
Ramallah |
|
|
2 |
Al-Mounasara |
Amman |
|
|
3 |
Charitable Society of Qatar |
Al-Dawhah |
|
|
4 |
Al-Mounasara |
Kuwait |
|
|
5 |
Eastern Welfare Network |
Eastern Region [ Saudi Arabia]25 |
|
|
6 |
The Palestinian Fund – Interpal |
London |
|
|
7 |
Al-Aqsa Fund |
Germany |
|
|
8 |
Holy Land Foundation |
United States |
|
|
9 |
Human Appeal International |
UAE |
|
|
10 |
Palestinian Charitable Society |
Italy |
|
|
11 |
Palestinian Charitable Society |
France |
|
|
12 |
Islamic Society for Orphan Welfare |
Kafar Qassem [ Israel] |
|
|
13 |
Humanitarian Welfare Society |
Nazareth [ Israel] |
|
|
14 |
WAMY [World Assembly of Muslim Youth] |
Riyadh [ Saudi Arabia] |
|
Appendix
A (6)
OverviewThe document deals with Interpal as providing the Ramallah-Al-Bireh Charity Committee with funds to hire teachers (both male and female) for the center for Qur’an memorization and for the establishment of a library at the Grand Mosque in Al-Bireh. The mosque, also known as the ‘Abd al-Nasser mosque, is a center for Hamas activity, despite the fact that like others, it is formally under the jurisdiction of the PA.
According to the document, those responsible for running the “charitable society” are requested to provide detailed, documented reports about their activities (an indication of the problems arising between Interpal and the “charity committees” as to inspection of how the money is spent).(19) The donations are collected under the aegis of the Union of Good – UK (of which Interpal is an important component) and a British Muslim organization called Muslim Aid,(20) which in the past was headed by Yussuf Islam, formerly singer Cat Stevens, who converted to Islam.(21)
19. Similar indications appear in additional documents which follow below.
20. An Interpal collaborator.
21. The United States recently refused Stevens entry into its territory on the grounds that he was suspected to transferring money to Hamas and to sheikh ‘Omar ‘Abd al-Rahman, who was arrested for his part in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center (See Reuters September 22, 2004; AP Washington, September 23, 2004; the British Daily Telegraph, September 23, 2004). In the past Israel as well has refused him entry.
Full account here:
http://www.intelligence.org.il/eng/sib/12_04/interpal_app_a.htm
DISRUPTING
THE FINANCIAL NETWORKS OF TERROR
Article taken from the website of Osen and Associates http://www.osen.us/
BackgroundArticle taken from the website of Osen and Associates http://www.osen.us/
The United States is engaged in a long-term war against terrorism. A critical front in the War on Terror is the effort to disrupt and destroy the financial networks that sustain terrorists and finance their operations. The United States Government has the primary task of identifying, tracking and pursuing terrorist financing targets and working alongside foreign governments to take measures to prevent terrorists from raising and channeling funds needed to survive and carry out their horrible acts. United States law enforcement agencies expend great efforts to combat the financing of terrorist activities.
Since September 11, 2001, the United States Government has ordered the freezing of U.S. assets of more than 300 individuals and entities linked to terrorism and frozen more than $135 million in almost 50 countries.
Designations by the U.S. State Department
The State Department has continued to publicly designate and re-designate major foreign terrorist groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). The Secretary of State’s formal designations, made in consultation with the Attorney General and Secretary of the Treasury, have resulted in formally designating more than 35 groups, including Al Qaeda and HAMAS as FTOs. Once designated, a group’s U.S. assets are frozen, and knowingly providing funds or other forms of material support to a designated group is deemed a criminal offense. Members and leaders of the designated organizations are denied visas to the United States.
HAMAS, CBSP and Interpal
HAMAS’s suicide bombings and other terrorist activities demonstrate the organization’s commitment to undermining any real efforts to negotiate a permanent peace between Israel and the Palestinians and to implement Palestinian reforms. Shutting off the flow of funds to HAMAS is crucial to reducing HAMAS’s ability to carry out its activities and to thwart progress towards peace. Although some of these financial streams may be used to support charitable activities, the U.S. Government has consistently stated that even “charitable” donations to HAMAS frees up funds used to support HAMAS’s terrorist activities.
On August 22, 2003, President Bush announced the designation for, and froze the assets of, five alleged HAMAS fundraisers including CBSP in France (Comité de Bienfaisance et de Secours aux Palestiniens) and Interpal in Great Britain. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, HAMAS has used its “charities” to strengthen its own reputation among Palestinians and recruit supporters at the expense of the Palestinian Authority.
In light of this, in September, 2003, the U.S. Government welcomed the European Union’s decision to designate HAMAS in its entirety as a terrorist organization. Previously, the European Union had only designated HAMAS’s “military wing” as a terrorist entity. The U.S. Government has consistently urged governments throughout the world to take steps to shut down HAMAS operations and offices, and to do everything possible to disrupt the flow of funding to HAMAS and other Palestinian organizations that have engaged in terror to disrupt peace efforts.
Nonetheless, the painful fact is that the Palestinian Authority has taken no steps to close (and seldom hinders) HAMAS’s vast fundraising network. Likewise, Great Britain and France have made no serious efforts to close either CBSP or Interpal.
Terror Victims’ Options
Unfortunately, neither diplomacy nor official designation under law has had a material impact on HAMAS’s access to its worldwide fundraising network. Against this backdrop, the civil provisions of the Antiterrorism Act point to alternative ways that private citizens can have an impact in the War on Terror. The provisions of the Antiterrorism Act (18 U.S.C. § 2333(a)) permit United States citizens to bring private lawsuits against the terrorists who injured them or killed their family members in terrorist attacks. The law also allows terror victims to bring actions against the individuals and entities that support or finance international terrorism.
As the lawsuits filed in the past 18 months help demonstrate, HAMAS has proven to be extremely dependent on the international financial system for the bulk of its fundraising activities. In Linde v. Arab Bank, Plc, the plaintiffs allege that Jordan’s leading bank, Arab Bank Plc, provides financial services to more than a dozen HAMAS front organizations. In Weiss v. National Westminster Bank Plc, the plaintiffs allege that Interpal, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, collects and distributes funds on behalf of HAMAS through accounts maintained at NatWest in London.
Private lawsuits cannot replace diplomatic efforts and they are no substitute for vigorous law enforcement and criminal prosecutions. However, these cases play an important role not only in bringing a small measure of justice to individual terror victims but also bringing these issues to the public’s awareness. Litigation can also prove a deterrent to financial institutions that have turned a blind eye to terror financing.
taken from WorldNetDaily.com - December 21, 2004
TRAIL OF TERROR
Major British charity 'a Hamas front'
Security sources: UK reluctant to close Interpal because of internal politics
A major Islamic charity raising millions of dollars in Britain
"to provide humanitarian aid to peoples of the Middle East" is actually
a Hamas front that channels funds from British Muslims to support Hamas
terrorism, Israeli security sources told WorldNetDaily.TRAIL OF TERROR
Major British charity 'a Hamas front'
Security sources: UK reluctant to close Interpal because of internal politics
According to its website, Interpal, established in 1994, is a British charity "that focuses solely on the provision of relief and development aid to the poor and needy of Palestine and the world over, primarily in Palestine and the refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon."
The charity reportedly raised more than $8 million last year.
Interpal was declared an illegal, terror-supporting organization in Israel because of its alleged links to Hamas and was outlawed in the United States in August 2003 after being designated by a U.S. executive order "an entity that commits, threatens to commit or supports terrorism."
Interpal has been investigated several times by British authorities, and has in the past had its UK bank accounts temporarily frozen, but Britain's Charity Commission in 2003 dropped the investigation for "lack of evidence" that Interpal was connected to any terrorist organization. The charity currently operates unimpeded in Britain.
But documents discovered and recently declassified from Israel's 2002 Operation Defensive Shield in the Palestinian territories, along with other supportive evidence released through the Center for Special Studies in Israel, including bank-transfer information, should warrant Britain reopening its investigation into Interpal, security sources say.
"Interpal is one of the most important channels through which money is poured into the Hamas infrastructure in the Palestinian areas, and Britain has been and will continue to be provided with plenty of evidence" a security source told WorldNetDaily.
"Interpal says its funds are going to the welfare of Palestinians, but the institutions giving out the money in the [Palestinian] territories are headed by senior Hamas officials," said the security source.
The source said activities financed by Interpal include "money for the families of suicide bombers, which raises morale and provides motivation for others to become terrorists, and education services that teach kids the importance of jihad."
The source said Hamas also uses the funds for other humanitarian purposes "to endear itself to the Palestinian population."
Interpal's website calls the Palestinian issue "a special case," and details the works it does for the Palestinians, such as special Ramadan programs and "moral and financial support through sponsorships to the disabled orphans, widows and needy children and families."
The site doesn't specify which local organizations the charity works with, but Israel says security forces uncovered documents showing Interpal's affiliates consist mostly of prominent Hamas institutions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
One document, a trustees report entitled "Interpal Activities and Achievements in the Year 2002," lists ten of Interpal's beneficiaries, all of which are official Hamas organizations. Sources say Hamas receives Interpal funds directly through a banking system that channels money into accounts at the Arab Bank, which maintains branches in London, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Interpal's former chairman and current vice-chairman of the board of trustees, Essam Silah Mustafa, is a well-known Hamas activist. Israel's Shin Bet has declared Mustafa "one of the most prominent individuals in Hamas' financial system in the Western world."
Interpal's founder, Ibrahim Brian Hewitt, a British citizen who converted to Islam reportedly in the 1980s, told the British daily Guardian newspaper it was "possible" some of Interpal's funds may have gone to Hamas, but he claimed Hamas' social services were not managed by the terror group's "military wing."
Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, founder of Al-Muhajiroun, an Islamic fundamentalist organization that recently disbanded after being suspected of ties to al-Qaida, told the British media last month of a "Muslim organization in Britain" with a special monetary fund that recruits for Hamas. He wouldn't name the charity.
Muhammad has in the past told WorldNetDaily he supports Hamas and has called on the British Muslim community to contribute to Hamas and join the terror group.
"We must support Hamas. ... We should maintain cooperation among nations so that we can all liberate ourselves together," Bakri told a group of British Muslims at a meeting attended by WorldNetDaily.
Indeed, two British members of Al-Muhajiroun became suicide bombers for Hamas, killing three Israelis when they blew up Mike's Place pizza shop in Tel Aviv in 2003.
Following a media campaign in 1995 against Hamas charities, British security investigated Interpal and temporarily froze its assets. Then-British Home Secretary Michael Howard said a 1996 investigation concluded no illegitimate financial activity was found.
In April 2003, just before the U.S. outlawed Interpal, Britain's Charity Commission announced it was reopening its investigation of links between Interpal and Hamas, but it later claimed to have found nothing.
"The [British] authorities are afraid of the large Muslim community," said a security source. "Britain's failure to close Interpal and take action against Hamas' charities is coming from internal politics."