Posted on 09/03/2008 7:40:13 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
BEIJING: The Chinese government has indicated it is not interested in investigating allegations that the Bank of China was involved in transferring millions of dollars to Hamas and Islamic Jihad for carrying out terrorist activities in Israel between 2004 and 2007.
The allegations have been made in the form of lawsuits filed in US courts by a group of 100 Israelis including parents of a 4-year old boy killed in terrorist attack in 2004. The group has alleged that BOC put through dozens of wire transfers totalling several million dollars to Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Jiang Yu, spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry, told reporters that the bank has not been questioned by China's anti-money laundering authorities. She even indicated that there is very little chance of a local investigating taking place as the anti-money laundering authorities in the US have also not sent any inquiries to the BOC.
China's anti-money laundering law requires financial companies to keep a database of clients' background information and to report large and suspicious transactions. This gives an opportunity to the China Anti-Money Laundering Monitoring and Analysis Centre, part of the People's Bank of China, to examine BOC database and find out the truth about the accusations.
But the question is whether the central bank will avail of this opportunity to pick up information and leads suggesting any case of terrorists financing and money laundering for the purpose of investigations. Possibly not.
Chinese authorities seem keen on protecting the bank because investigations into a sensitive issue like terrorist financing can result in loss of reputation for the country's financial sector as a whole.
"Chinese authorities will prefer to defend a local bank to avoid an international scandal. The government might even use its diplomatic influence in the US to protect BOC," a retired government official said.
BOC, which is China's third largest bank, has denied the charges and warned it might launch counter-lawsuits to protect its reputation. A BOC official has scoffed off the accusations as "sheer nonsense".
The case is testing China's new anti-money laundering law, which came into effect in 2007, for the second time. The last case concerned Banco Delta Asia of Macau, which was accused by the US Treasury of laundering money on behalf of North Korean groups involved in terrorism and smuggling of nuclear material.
Free Trade funding terrorism...now who woulda thunk that....
Wepons to our enemies (the folks killing our soldiers) and it isn’t a campaign issue this time around.
In simple terms it’s called putting a price on the heads of our soldiers.
I’m a long way from anti war but it’s pretty hard to support putting our troops in the line of fire from people we arm and finance directly or indirectly.
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