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Alqaeda smuggling diamonds Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011105/wl/liberia_un_sanctions_dc_1.htmlhttp://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011105/wl/liberia_un_sanctions_dc_1.html
Monday November 5 5:54 PM ET
Al Qaeda Could Be Smuggling Diamonds - Expert
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The Interpol expert serving on a U.N. panel investigating diamond smuggling and gun-running in Liberia said on Monday it was plausible that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network used diamonds to get cash.
``Wherever diamonds are, be it Angola, be it in Sierra Leone or any place, definitely they will try to use that channel. That is common sense,'' Harjit Singh Sandhu of India, one of five panel experts, told a news conference.
But Sandhu said the panel, investigating Liberia's compliance with diamond, arms, air and travel sanctions, imposed by the U.N. Security Council, had not probed the al Qaeda link as it had ended its work before the attacks.
However, he said terrorist networks tried to use every possible means without funneling cash though banks. ``Everything is linked,'' Sandhu said.
The Washington Post said on Friday that al Qaeda, blamed for Sept. 11 attacks against the United States -- which killed more than 4,500 -- had earned millions of dollars from the sale of diamonds mined by Sierra Leone's rebels and smuggled through Liberia. It singled out Ibrahim Bah, a Senegalese trained in Libya as the dealer.
POST DETAILS DIAMOND ROUTE
The panel's report said Bah, operating from Burkina Faso, has continued to obtain diamonds from senior rebel leaders, which are then smuggled via Liberia or Ivory coast to Europe in violation of the sanctions.
The panel of experts presented its exhaustive ``name and shame'' report on gun-runners, diamond dealers and clandestine air transport companies to the Security Council. Members will discuss on Wednesday whether to ease any of the sanctions. Liberia is blamed for arming Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front rebels, notorious for their cruelty to civilians, in exchange for looting diamonds from mines they control.
The panel said the council should impose sanctions on certain types of Liberian logging, maintain its ban on diamonds and arms and control revenues Liberia gets from its ``flag of convenience'' shipping register.
But it is doubtful the Security Council will expand the sanctions, although Britain's U.N. ambassador, Jeremy Greenstock, said the United Nations should put a ban on all logging exports so the funds would not be used for illicit arms trade.
LIBERIA CRITICIZES REPORT
Liberia's foreign minister, Monie Captan told the council the panel's report was ``void of any substantive relevance'' and went far beyond its mandate in not evaluating precisely what his government had done to comply with the sanctions.
He also pointed to Liberia's role in peace-making efforts in Sierra Leone and in the region and its impoverished population, injured further by embargoes. ``What will this council do to help encourage, consolidate and sustain, in a positive way, the (peace) progress achieved,'' he asked.
Singapore's U.N. Ambassador, Kishore Mahbubani, chairman of the Security Council committee responsible for the Liberian sanctions, said the report needed to be followed up by the council as it cost close to $900,000 to produce.
His deputy, Christine Lee, said that invaluable information collected by the Liberia panel and a similar probe on diamond smuggling and gun-running by Angola's rebels disclosed the same criminal networks, but neither was being followed up properly.
She said the United Nations secretariat should set up a professional monitoring body or the work of the panels was lost. ``The lack of follow-up means that any attempt to show respect for the sanctions disappears as soon as the spotlight is off these countries,'' Lee said.
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