Doc. 9520

15 July 2002

The need for intensified international co-operation to neutralise funds for terrorist purposes

Report

Committee on Economic Affairs and Development

Rapporteur: Mr Dick Marty, Switzerland, Liberal, Democratic and Reformers’ Group

Summary:

International cooperation to trace and neutralise terrorist funding forms a vital part of the world’s fight against this evil. If successful it can considerably weaken terrorist networks and hinder their operations.

The report describes the progress reached since 11 September, but also points to remaining shortcomings. It urges the world community, and notably Europe, to reach a new degree of cooperation in halting terrorist funding, and this at three levels: the normative, in particular through the ratification of existing conventions and by making any financing in support of terrorism a criminal offence; the operative level through closer international cooperation in all fields; and at the level of practical implementation of agreements, the setting up and strengthening of monitoring instruments through bodies such as the Financial Action Task Force and various Council of Europe mechanisms.

The report cautions, however, that “in our joint efforts to combat terrorism and its funding, we must abide by the rule of law, democracy and human rights, including the ban against the death penalty”. These core values of the Council of Europe, it concludes, must form the first line of defence against terrorism, for it is precisely them that terrorists seek above all to destroy.

I.        Draft recommendation

1.       The terrorist attacks against the United States of America on 11 September 2001 demonstrated in the most dramatic and tragic fashion the vulnerability of civilisation vis-à-vis those seeking to destroy it, and the resulting need for civilisation to take every measure to prevent terrorist acts and apprehend the perpetrators, organisers and sponsors, along the principles set out in the Assembly’s Recommendation 1534 (2001) on democracies facing terrorism.

2.       The Assembly, referring in particular to its Recommendation 1550 (2002) on combating terrorism and respect for human rights, underlines the importance in this struggle of identifying and neutralising funds destined for terrorist purposes – an undertaking which is possible only if the world community, and notably Europe, reach a new degree of co-operation at the normative, operative and implementation levels. While such an effort may not be able to prevent all terrorist acts, it can contribute significantly to weakening terrorist infrastructure. This is so especially if measures can neutralise terrorism’s legal sources of financing, which in certain cases operate under the cover of humanitarian, non-profit or even charitable organisations. It is also necessary to prevent general criminal activities that often serve to finance terrorism, such as trafficking in human beings, drugs and weapons. The systems and measures developed over the last few years to prevent the laundering of proceeds from crime can, if conscientiously applied, play a significant role in the detection, freezing and confiscation of terrorist funds.

3.       The Assembly, with the above in mind, recommends that the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe undertake the following measures:

At the normative level.

i.       to work in favour of the ratification by all Council of Europe member states and others of the totality of international legal instruments available in the fight against terrorism and its financing, and in particular the 1999 United Nations International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism;

ii.       to reach urgent agreement on a definition of terrorism, preferably based on that adopted in December 2001 by the European Council of the European Union in a common position;

iii.       to render any financial activity in support of terrorism as thus defined a criminal offence;

iv.       further to strengthen domestic legislation and any international convention in need thereof, by adapting them to new technological and other developments as well as to the growing sophistication of terrorists, for the purpose of successfully tracing the origin – whether legal or illegal – as well as the routing of funds intended for terrorist ends, with a view to their seizure or confiscation. The Assembly in this connection welcomes the decision of the Committee of Ministers in May 2002 for an additional protocol to be drawn up within the 1997 European Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism and asks the Committee of Ministers also to envisage the possibility of adapting the Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceed from Crime, for instance through an additional protocol;

At the operative level.

v.       to intensify co-operation between national administration, police forces, judiciaries, financial institutions, regulatory and other authorities in order to discover suspicious international transactions and thereby reach the organisations and individuals behind them. The Assembly in this context welcomes the creation in 2001 of EuroJust and supports decisions taken to widen the mandates of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the Council of Europe’s Select Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-money Laundering measures, to include also the detection of terrorism financing and welcomes the establishment within Europol of an international terrorism task force dealing also with its financial aspects;

At the level of monitoring implementation:

vi.       to ensure that international conventions and other agreements against terrorism financing are effectively implemented in Council of Europe member states and other participating states - notably by strengthening the mandates and increasing the resources of the FATF and other competent bodies such as the Council of Europe’s Select Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money-Laundering Measures, and by rendering public any national shortcoming so as to increase pressure for remedial action;

vii.       finally, the Assembly reiterates its belief, as expressed notably in its Resolution 1271 (2002) on combating terrorism and respect for human rights, that the fight against terrorism must never be allowed to harm the Council of Europe’s fundamental values of democracy, the rule of law and human rights – including the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and its ban against the death penalty.

II. Explanatory Memorandum by the rapporteur

Table of Contents

I.        INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

II.        SOURCES OF TERRORIST FINANCES. DEFINING THE CONCEPT OF TERRORIST FUNDING

III.        ESTABLISHING A COUNCIL OF EUROPE EVALUATION AND MONITORING MECHANISM

IV.        FINDING THE RIGHT BALANCE BETWEEN DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION AND THE PROTECTION OF PRIVACY. ESTABLISHING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MONEY LAUNDERING AND TAX HAVENS

V.        THE NEED FOR A GLOBAL APPROACH. BRINGING ABOUT MORE CONCERTED ACTION BETWEEN DIFFERENT INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

VI.       CONCLUDING REMARKS

Appendix I:        Definition of “terrorist acts” as given in a Common Position on the application of specific measures to combat terrorism, adopted by the European Council of the European Union on 27 December 2001

Appendix II:        Certain important legal instruments and web sites related to the fight against terrorism and terrorist financing

I.        INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

1.       In September 2001, following the terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September of that year, the Rapporteur introduced a Motion for a resolution on the “Need for intensified international cooperation to neutralise funds for terrorist purposes” (Doc. 9254). The Motion, which was signed by numerous members of the Assembly, called for increased international cooperation to curb and ultimately cut off funding of terrorism. The motion also stressed the need to review the implementation of Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime (ETS n° 141) and explore ways to improve its effectiveness.

2.        Council of Europe efforts to combat crime, terrorism and money laundering date back long before the September 11 events. It has an impressive inventory of legal instruments available in the fight against terrorism and terrorist financing. These instruments today usefully underpin the epoch-making United Nations International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism of 2001. Examples include the Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime, the European Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism, as well as the Assembly Recommendation 1507 (2001) on Europe’s Fight Against Economic and Transnational Organised Crime: Progress or Retreat and Resolution 1214 (2000) on the Role of Parliaments in Fighting Corruption.

3.       The Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime provides a solid legal instrument for Council of Europe member and observer states in their fight against organised crime. Its principal aim is to facilitate international co-operation and mutual assistance in the investigation of money laundering and in tracing, seizing and confiscating the proceeds from crime. It provides the parties with a comprehensive legal framework in their efforts to disrupt the financial sources behind organised crime, which uses money laundering as one of its main methods to legalise illegal profits. The Convention could also be instrumental in the international community’s efforts against terrorist financing. However, it could not a priori be expected to prevent acts of terrorism on the scale of September 11. We must therefore undertake renewed efforts to curb terrorism, including by cutting off its financial sources.

      

4.       The Assembly, in its Recommendation 1507 (2001) “Europe’s fight against economic and transnational organised crime: progress or retreat,” has already called on the Committee of Ministers to update the 1990 Convention “… in order to render it capable of responding to the changing features of money laundering. This implies the revision of the convention by supplementing it with additional protocols” (paragraph 10, point vi).

5.        In the weeks following the 11 September events, the Assembly touched briefly on the aspect of terrorist financing in its Recommendation 1534 (2001) on Democracies Facing Terrorism and its Resolution 1258 (2001) on the same subject. (See Docs.9228; Rapporteur: Mr Davis) It was to return to the general topic of terrorism in January 2002 in its Recommendation 1550 (2002) and Resolution 1271 (2002) on Combating Terrorism and Respect for Human Rights (see Doc. 9331; Rapporteur: Mr Hunault) and again devote some attention to the financing issue. However, the present report is the first to take the matter exclusively, while needless to say building on these other reports. Finally, the Rapporteur attended – and addressed on the present subject - the Saint Petersburg Interparliamentary Forum on Combating Terrorism held in that city in March 2002 as a joint initiative between the Interparliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States 5CIS) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.(See Final Declaration on website …..) That major conference, attended by some 600 parliamentarians from the entire Council of Europe and the CIS area, also proved highly useful for the purposes of the present report.

6.        Work to improve the Council of Europe legal instruments has already started and the Rapporteur welcomes the decision taken by the Committee of Ministers at its 110th session in Vilnius, 3 May 2002 to ask the Group on international action against Terrorism (GMT) to prepare a draft protocol to the European Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism. The Rapporteur, while waiting to see the scope of the new Protocol, hopes that another possibility will not in the meantime be let out of sight - namely that of equipping the existing Council of Europe Convention on Laundering Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime with an additional protocol that would address the issues raised in the present report.

II.        SOURCES OF TERRORIST FINANCES. DEFINING THE CONCEPT OF TERRORIST FUNDING

7.       Terrorist organisations need funds to operate. Such funds may come from different sources: money may flow from charitable and relief organisations, private donors, legitimate businesses, voluntary contributions as well as from traditional criminal activities such as extortion, fraud or drug trafficking.

8.        Tracking funds that might be used for terrorist purposes is a difficult task. Terrorists hide the identity of their sources as they move assets around the world. It should also be noted that, unlike organised crime, terrorists want money not primarily for profit motives, but for ideological reasons. Consequently, the political goal is in the forefront. Furthermore, it appears that many of the funds of Al Qaida and other terrorist movements are no longer in banks but in commodities more difficult to trace, such as gold, diamonds and other precious stones or metals. These are easy to store and transport and hold their value over time. Indeed, they are likely to increase in times of economic uncertainty resulting from terrorist action, since people in such situations tend to lose confidence in stocks and money assets.

9.        An obvious problem is that the sums of money involved in terrorism may be relatively small, especially when compared with the funds linked to the illegal drugs trade. Terrorist funds constitute only a tiny portion of the total movements of capital worldwide, whether legitimate or not. The size of transactions is not the only problem. Laundered terrorist funds may originate from extortion, fraud or trafficking in drugs or arms, but they may also come from legitimate sources. Monitoring terrorist funds therefore involves not only their destination but also their origin. Surveillance systems to meet this double challenge are still far from complete.

10.       For money transfers to international terrorism as well as within the Islamist financial network, both the classical banking system and alternatives such as the Hawala system are used. Hawala (‘confidence’ in Arabic) builds on a centuries-old system based on absolute confidence between the participants. According to the United Nations, Hawala is believed to be the second largest payments system in the world.

11.       It is now known that money from the United Arab Emirates (or money transferred through that country) was used to support the subsistence of the perpetrators of the 11 September attacks, including for their flying education. Unused money was returned to the United Arab Emirates by two of the 11 September terrorists only days before the attacks. Similarly, a suspected co-perpetrator now awaiting trial in the United States received considerable sums from the so-called ‘Hamburg Group’ of 11 September terrorists in order to finance his aviation education. The 11 September terrorists and several alleged supporters in Germany also had procurement rights for each other’s accounts, permitting them to transfer money more easily.

12.       Some terrorist acts are relatively cheap to carry out. Even if the preparation of 11 September had cost several hundred thousand dollars (the estimate is actually lower), this stands in no comparison to the enormous direct and indirect financial damage caused if one includes in the political, military, legal and security fields. By contrast, the development and maintenance of terrorist structures as well as their supply with weapons and logistics require considerable and continuous funding. This also holds for military type terrorist camps, such as those of Al Qaida in Afghanistan. It is here that the tracing of terrorist funds can make a real impact.

13.       The Assembly proposes that member states jointly define what they mean by illegal mechanisms of terrorist financing and then render such funding a criminal offence, either by means of a separate Council of Europe Convention or through an additional protocol to the Convention on Laundering Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime. This definition would allow a difference to be made between the financing of terrorist activities and the laundering of funds generated by terrorist activities. Clearly, not all terrorist funds have their origin in criminal activity, although many do. In defining the offence of terrorist financing, special attention should be paid to legitimate businesses that were legal at the beginning of the process but end up being used for terrorist activities or the support of terrorist networks. Curbing terrorist funding thus proves a real challenge and poses a number of questions related to rendering such activities criminal. The new instrument should also address a host of other issues in the area of prevention and control. For example, countries will need to regulate not only conventional financial institutions but also informal money exchange undertakings, underground banking, ‘Bureaux de change’, certain hedge funds and non-profit groups occasionally used to channel financing to terrorist activities.

III.        ESTABLISHING A COUNCIL OF EUROPE EVALUATION AND MONITORING MECHANISM

14.        True, defining the elements of terrorism financing, freezing the accounts and confiscating the assets of terrorist organisations and persons associated with terrorist acts are measures of paramount importance. However, so is the monitoring of the progress made by member states in implementing and applying such measures. The Council of Europe should therefore provide the legal basis for a new evaluation and enforcement mechanism under a separate Convention proposed above, or through an additional protocol to the Convention on Laundering Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime. This would permit an assessment of how fully Council of Europe member states adhere to international standards against terrorism and terrorist financing, including in particular those laid down by the Council of Europe. In addition, the Council of Europe should reinforce the Select Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures (PC-R-EV), whose 24 participating states have already agreed to undergo a self-assessment exercise with regard to eight special recommendations on terrorist financing adopted by the Financial Action task Force (FATF). This mechanism could be taken over and serve as a model for the monitoring of all Council of Europe member States, under the proposed new convention or under an additional protocol to the Convention on Laundering Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime. The Rapporteur and the Assembly have welcomed the support of the Committee of Ministers for the Council of Europe efforts to combat terrorism. The Ministers have examined the possibility of setting up a specific follow-up mechanism to the Council of Europe’s action in the field.

IV.        FINDING THE RIGHT BALANCE BETWEEN DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION AND THE PROTECTION OF PRIVACY. ESTABLISHING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MONEY LAUNDERING AND TAX HAVENS

15.        Today's society may be characterised by openness. However, the complex, "hi-tech" nature of international financial systems and the enormous daily volume of capital transfers make the tracing of terrorist funds extremely difficult. The international financial system is designed to promote development and investment. On the other hand, it is also used for clandestine and disruptive purposes, such as avoiding tax and laundering billions of dollars of profits from the drugs trade and other illicit activities. There is increasing pressure on what are known as tax havens to make their financial arrangements more transparent and provide information rapidly on suspicious accounts when criminal proceedings are under way. Bank secrecy, which exists in certain countries, cannot be allowed to hinder anti-terrorist measures. Indeed, as a rule, bank secrecy is automatically lifted whenever there is a criminal investigation. In order to ensure as much transparency as possible in the flow of funds, however, it is necessary to do away with all the opportunities that systematically facilitate tax evasion, which is often linked to money-laundering and the funding of criminal activities. It is not just bank secrecy and so-called tax havens that are responsible. There are other legal arrangements that make it easy to conceal the origin of funds: to mention only one example, there are the trusts that exist under the law of English-speaking countries. The Assembly must take a stand on the issue and try to strike the right balance between disclosure of information, on the one hand, and protection of privacy, on the other. In particular, it is important that supervisory and monitoring bodies, such as the FATF, should have sufficient resources to fulfil their tasks. Governments must also ensure that they have complete independence of action and judgment in their work. At the moment, these concerns do not, unfortunately, appear to be completely without foundation.

16.       National and international networks of terrorists and their supporters and organisations may be detected by identifying patterns in financial transactions, such as between accounts, the use of credit cards or efforts at money laundering. Furthermore, by careful analysis of the financial behaviour of already identified terrorists, still unknown ones may be traced in time. In this way we may also be able to apprehend so-called ‘sleepers’, that is, people linked with the terrorism who live discreet lives while awaiting word to take action. Such people often enjoy much greater possibilities to travel and communicate with other ‘sleepers’ worldwide and to transfer funds for the financing of new attacks. The Rapporteur in this context strongly supports the IMF’s recent proposal that its member countries establish financial intelligence units bringing together police officers, accountants and experts from other fields to monitor suspicious banking transactions.

V.        THE NEED FOR A GLOBAL APPROACH. BRINGING ABOUT MORE CONCERTED ACTION BETWEEN DIFFERENT INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

17.       Terrorism has become a strategic problem affecting the entire world, including its economy. The solution to dealing with international terrorist financing must therefore be similarly international in scope. Among the legal instruments adopted more recently are Security Council Resolution 1373 of September 2001, the US Presidential Order issued shortly after 11 September and the legal measures of the European Union (in particular the common position adopted by the Council of Ministers on 27 December 2001). Through these various initiatives people and organisations suspected of international terrorism are placed on lists, with the consequence that their accounts are frozen. In Germany, for instance, over thirty accounts containing some € 1.5 million have been frozen since 11 September. These lists are not easy to establish, however, for it is often difficult to prove the connection between given accounts and terrorism and the criteria for inclusion often vary between countries.

18.       In April 2002, the EU expanded the list of “persons, groups and entities involved in terrorist attacks”, whose assets are frozen under UN rules. By April 2002, Europe had frozen terrorist assets worth of $35 million. The UK alone accounted for $10 million of frozen assets. Furthermore, since the summer of 2001, over twenty Islamic activists and ‘businessmen’ have been arrested in Spain on grounds of belonging to or having links with Al Qaida. Some of those arrested are reported to have had direct or indirect contact with the 11 September terrorists or with the perpetrators of the attacks against the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Spain, like Germany, appears to have been a preferred logistical base for the procurement of false documents and money, as well as for gaining new recruits.

19.       In May 2002 the Spanish Government announced that it had discovered an extensive financial network used by the Basque terrorist organisation ETA. The network was reported to include numerous companies believed to have been financing ETA activities and organisations raising so-called “revolutionary taxes” through extortion and kidnappings. The companies were reported to have been based not only in Spain but also in France, Columbia, Cuba, Panama and the Cap Verde islands. In May 2002, the Rapporteur’s own country, Switzerland, enlarged the list of organisations and individuals suspected of links with terrorism, in particular with Al Qaida and the Taliban.

20.       It is also important to review existing money laundering legislation, especially the duty of financial institutions to report suspected terrorist transactions. So far, such reporting duty exists only when funds are suspected of having a criminal origin. However, it should be widened to include all funds suspected of terrorist links, whether from legal sources or not.

21.       At a meeting of the Council of Europe’s Committee against money laundering (PC-R-EV) in Liechtenstein in May 2002, it was recommended that Council of Europe member States include lawyers and other financial intermediaries among those under duty to report any suspicious financial transactions. Countries that have already done this were asked to share their experiences with countries that have not.

22.       We also need close cooperation between financial institutions at national and international level to be able to expose cross-border financial terrorist networks. Terrorist circles increasingly engage in illegal weapons and drug trafficking as well as traditional criminal activities. We must therefore combine data from ordinary criminal activities and organised crime with those obtained from the terrorist arena.

23.       It is to be welcomed that Europol in November 2001 established an international terrorism task force also dealing with the financing aspect. It needs to be further expanded. It is also heartening that the G-8 countries have agreed on methods to more effectively dry up financial sources for terrorism and stop their channels for the supply of weapons. We must also gather and share information about air trips by presumed terrorists. Finally, it is important that we do not grant resident status to people suspected of terrorist activities.

VI.       CONCLUDING REMARKS

24.       International institutions, such as the United Nations, the European Union, the OECD, the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, Interpol etc. have carried out a vast amount of work in the domain of the fight against terrorism and other related aspects such as its financing. The Financial Action Task Force leads action in the fight against money laundering and its mandate has been expanded to include terrorist financing. However, even the FATF does not have any power to take direct action. The international community needs to look into this and consider giving increased authority to the FATF to initiate sanctions against non-complying countries when it comes to suspected terrorist financing. It is also necessary to strengthen cooperation, notably by a greater exchange of information. Our national parliaments should adopt laws and regulations that would allow access to the financial records of criminal organisations and the confiscation of proceeds from criminal activity. At the same time, there should be more cooperation and joint action among all the important actors such as the Council of Europe, the European Union and the OECD.

25.       If fanaticism is the heart of modern terrorism, finance is its lifeblood. The Rapporteur is convinced his fellow parliamentarians agree on the need to undertake swift and determined action to cut off terrorist funding. The Assembly, bringing together parliamentarians from 44 member states of the Council of Europe, is in a unique position to assist in the fight against terrorism. As legitimate representatives of our peoples, we take decisions and approve legislation that protects the very foundations of our democratic societies: pluralist democracy, human rights and rule of law. Therefore, the Assembly should immediately undertake and encourage action at three levels.

26.       Firstly, at the normative level. All our countries should ratify the totality of the international legal instruments already in existence, whether these deal with fighting terrorism, combating money laundering, encouraging closer police cooperation or improving the instruments guiding legal assistance, so that the latter can become more efficient and rapid.

27.       Another task of a normative nature is to arrive at internationally accepted definitions of different terrorist acts and then render the latter criminal. This would also facilitate international cooperation - one aim being to bring terrorists to justice even before they have time to engage in terrorist acts in the proper sense.

28.       It is also important to establish codes of conduct for banks, the para-banking system, accountancy firms and undertakings which describe themselves as charitable and non-lucrative, but which in fact serve terrorists purposes. Finally, lax record-keeping opens the door to money laundering and other movements of funds that could aid terrorist groups. In order to be able to track terrorist financing, the international community needs to establish international standards of accounting.

29.       Secondly, action is needed also at the operational level. We must address the urgency of enhancing cooperation between police forces, judicial systems and administrative authorities - including the supervision of banks and the accounting sector.

30.       Thirdly, we must monitor implementation of measures at the normative and operational levels. Monitoring is needed not only within individual countries, such as over the banking sector, but also internationally. It is not enough simply to ratify a given convention. It must also be respected. The findings of monitoring instances, as for example the FATF, whether at national or international level, furthermore have to be made public so as to increase pressure for change.

31.       The Rapporteur wishes to stress one final point. In our joint efforts to combat terrorism or its funding, we must not lose sight of the obligation to abide by the rule of law, democracy and human rights, including the ban against the death penalty. Any action or measures taken must seek to strike a balance between protective measures against terrorism and the obligation to defend human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Appendix I:

Definition of “terrorist acts” as given in a Common Position on the application of specific measures to combat terrorism, adopted by the European Council of the European Union on 27 December 2001 (2001/931/CFSP)

Article 1


…

3. For the purposes of this Common Position, "terrorist act" shall mean one of the following intentional acts, which, given its nature or its context, may seriously damage a country or an international organisation, as defined as an offence under national law, where committed with the aim of:

(i) seriously intimidating a population, or
(ii) unduly compelling a Government or an international organisation to perform or abstain from performing any act, or
(iii) seriously destabilising or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country or an international organisation:
(a) attacks upon a person's life which may cause death;
(b) attacks upon the physical integrity of a person;
(c) kidnapping or hostage taking;
(d) causing extensive destruction to a Government or public facility, a transport system, an infrastructure facility, including an information system, a fixed platform located on the continental shelf, a public place or private property, likely to endanger human life or result in major economic loss;
(e) seizure of aircraft, ships or other means of public or goods transport;
(f) manufacture, possession, acquisition, transport, supply or use of weapons, explosives or of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, as well as research into, and development of, biological and chemical weapons;
(g) release of dangerous substances, or causing fires, explosions or floods the effect of which is to endanger human life;
(h) interfering with or disrupting the supply of water, power or any other fundamental natural resource, the effect of which is to endanger human life;
(i) threatening to commit any of the acts listed under (a) to (h);
(j) directing a terrorist group;
(k) participating in the activities of a terrorist group, including by supplying information or material resources, or by funding its activities in any way, with knowledge of the fact that such participation will contribute to the criminal activities of the group.

For the purposes of this paragraph, "terrorist group" shall mean a structured group of more than two persons, established over a period of time and acting in concert to commit terrorist acts. "Structured group" means a group that is not randomly formed for the immediate commission of a terrorist act and that does not need to have formally defined roles for its members, continuity of its membership or a developed structure.

Appendix II

Certain important legal instruments and web sites related to the fight against terrorism and terrorist financing

Council of Europe Conventions to Combat Terrorism

http://www.coe.int/

United Nations Conventions

http://www.un.org/terrorism/

European Union

http://europa.eu.int/comm/justice_home/news/terrorism/documents/index_en.htm

 

Financial Action Task Force

http://www1.oecd.org/fatf/

Reporting committee: Committee on Economic Affairs and Development.

Reference to committee: Doc. 9254 ; Reference No. 2671 of 8 November 2001

Draft recommendation unanimously adopted by the committee on 30 May 2002.

Members of the committee: Mrs Zapfl-Helbling (Chairperson), Mrs Stepova (Vice-chairperson), Mr Kirilov, Mr Blaauw (Vice-chairmen), Mr Adam, Mr Agius, Mr Agramunt, Mrs Akgönenç, Mr I. Aliyev, Ms Anderson, Mr Arnau, Mr Aylward, Mr Berceanu, Mr Billing,  Mr Braun, Mr Brunhart, Mr Budin, Mr Budisa, Mrs Burbiené, Mrs Calner, Mr Cerrahoglu, Mr Cosarciuc, Mr Crema, Mr Djupedal, Mr Elo, Mr Eyskens, Mr Felici, Mr Galoyan, Mr Grachev (Alternate: Ms Yarygina), Mr Gülek, Mr Gusenbauer, Mr Haupert, Mrs Hoffmann, Mr Hrebenciuc, Mr Jung (Alternate: Mrs Durrieu), Mr Kacin, Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, Mr Kosakivsky, Mr Leers, Mr Liapis, Mr Lotz, Mr Makhachev, Mr Mateju, Mr Mikkelsen, Mr Mitterrand, Mr Naumov, Mr Palis, Mrs Patarkalishvili, Mr Pavlidis, Mr Pereira Coelho, Mrs Pericleous-Papadopoulos, Mrs Pintat Rossell, Mr Pleshakov (Alternate: Mr Tulaev), Mr Podgorski, Mr Popa, Mr Popescu, Mr Popovski, Mr Prokes, Mr Puche, Mrs Ragnarsdottir, Mr Ramponi, Mr Reimann (Alternate: Mr Marty), Mr Rivolta, Lord Russell-Johnston, Mr Schmitz, Mrs Schoettel-Delacher, Mr Schreiner (Alternate: Mr Le Grand), Mr Seyidov (Alternate: Mr Mollazade), Ms Smith, Mr Stefanov, Mr Suslov, Mr Texeira de Melo, Mr Valleix, Mr Voog, Mr Walter (Alternate: Baroness Hooper), Mr Wielowieyski, Mr Wikinski

N.B. The names of those members present at the meeting are printed in italics.

Head of Secretariat: Mr Torbiörn

Secretary to the Sub-Committee on Budgetary Affairs: M. Bertozzi

Co-Secretaries to the committee: Ms Ramanauskaite and Ms Kopaçi-Di Michele