Posted on 08/16/2002 4:09:58 PM PDT by knighthawk
NEW DELHI: With reported charges about a former ISI chief having sent money to a key 9/11 conspirator, Pakistani agencies have started investigating bank accounts of banned terrorist outfits, though bankers claim these probes do not have any legal cover, media reports said.
Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has started gathering details of accounts belonging to several banned militant and sectarian organisations in banks like the Habib Bank, National Bank, Allied Bank, Muslim Commercial Bank and Faysal Bank, Dawn newspaper reported.
The organistions whose accounts are being investigated include Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Harkat-ul- Mujahedeen, Sipah-e-Sahaba, Al Badr, Tehreek-i-Jafferia Pakistan and Al Rashid Trust, it said.
The paper said the FIA was "assigned to locate and identify the financiers and donors of these organisations" which had been maintaining several local and foreign currency accounts with different banks.
The FIA's assignment, "reportedly given on the insistence of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the US, was also aimed at cross-checking the data so far collected by other intelligence agencies in this regard", the paper said. However, it quoted unnammed banking sources as saying that though some "sensitive agencies" had already obtained information on financial transactions of the banned outfits through these accounts, these agencies had "no legal cover for seeking such information from the banks".
The investigating officer, according to the bankers, should obtain permission under Bankers Books Evidence Act under which they require a nod of a sessions court or a High Court in writing. 11 terror strikes in the US.
Reports had said that a former ISI chief had sent $1 mn to Mohammad Atta, a key conspirator of the September 11 terror strikes in the US.
The Pakistani weekly Independent said investigators believed "that former ISI chief Gen Mehmood Ahmad had also been involved in the transaction of money through Omar Sheikh (now in Pakistani custody) to Mohammad Atta who reportedly returned 15,600 dollars through the hawala channel just before the 'kamikaze' attacks".
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