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PPATK freezes extremist-related accounts
The Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK) said on Monday it had frozen as many as 20 bank accounts, containing billions of rupiah, belonging to al-Qaeda and Taliban-affiliated terrorist groups operating in Indonesia
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he Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK) said on Monday it had frozen as many as 20 bank accounts, containing billions of rupiah, belonging to al-Qaeda and Taliban-affiliated terrorist groups operating in Indonesia.
PPATK deputy chairman Agus Santoso said that 17 of the bank accounts were held by individuals who were believed to have connections to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Meanwhile three accounts were registered under the names of NGOs supporting radicalism in Indonesia.
Agus declined to reveal the identities of the individuals or the NGOs, saying that the asset freezing conducted by the PPATK on the 20 accounts was part of the recent global effort led by the United Nations Security Council to suspend assets of around 380 terrorist groups around the world.
'The recent move is a manifestation of Indonesia's commitment to the international community especially to UN members with regard to the war on terrorist funding,' Agus said on the sidelines of the PPATK's 13th anniversary celebrations on Monday.
Agus added that the PPATK decided to ask the financial authorities to freeze the assets after receiving information from the UN Security Council that the 20 individuals and NGOs were part the global terrorist network listed in the United Nations Security Council resolution No. 1267.
Following the passing of Law No. 9/2013 on funding terrorism and the establishment of a mutual agreement involving the chief justice of the Supreme Court, the National Police chief, the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) chief and the PPATK chairman on the freezing of terrorist-related assets, financial authorities have been granted the authority to seize any funds suspected of having links to terrorist activities in Indonesia.
'The mutual agreement allows us to freeze terrorism-related assets within three days. The Financial Action Task Force considers this good progress and has thus decided to temporarily remove Indonesia from its blacklisted countries,' Agus added.
In addition to the global fight against terrorism, the US Department of the Treasury in September 2014 named terrorist group Jamaah Islamiyah's (JI) humanitarian wing, the Hilal Ahmar Society of Indonesia (HASI), and three Indonesians as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs).
The three Indonesians are Angga Dimas Pershada, a JI operative and HASI leader, Bambang Sukirno, a senior JI leader, who, over a number of years, has held various senior leadership positions within JI as well as Wiji Joko Santoso or Abu Seif, who is the head of JI's foreign affairs division and a key player in JI's outreach efforts in Syria.
Separately, PPATK chairman Muhammad Yusuf said that the PPATK had recently detected hundreds of millions of rupiah being funneled by a terrorist-related foundation in Australia to support a terrorist group in Indonesia.
'The company [foundation] in Australia is owned by a foreign national. Some of its funds were wired to an Indonesian, who has been convicted in Indonesia. I don't want to mention any names but the Indonesian's son recently died [in Syria],' Yusuf said, he is believed to have been referring to firebrand cleric Muhammad Iqbal Abdurrahman, widely known as Abu Jibril.
