Americans vs. Qatar: Doha’s terrorist money-laundering banks

Shaimaa Hefzy

American victims of terrorist operations have accused Qatar of being behind the money laundering and financing of terrorist groups, bringing the Qatari role in funding terrorists to light again.

Americans vs. Qatar

Americans residing in Israel filed a lawsuit against Qatar and its banks, accusing Doha of financing terrorist groups, including Islamic Jihad, in order to carry out terrorist operations.

The financing of terrorism is not limited to Qatari groups, as Doha pursues suspicious relations with a number of banks around the world that it has been able to buy shares in and pump investments that facilitate the transfer of funds across borders legally without the origins being known.

Moreover, Qatar finances the terrorist Brotherhood through a British bank, which was revealed last year. According to a lengthy investigation published by the British newspaper The Times, Doha used the British Al Rayan Bank for what it called “the promotion of Islamic issues”, as the bank provides services to various organizations, among which are 15 controversial ones, including four mosque and three charities whose accounts have been frozen at other British banks.

Supporting extremists

Among Al Rayan’s agents is a charity that the United States has banned as a terrorist entity, associations that support extremist clerics, and a mosque affiliated with a leader of the Palestinian Hamas movement.

Al Rayan Bank is the oldest and largest Islamic bank in Britain and provides services to more than 85,000 customers. The investigation indicated that 70% of the bank is owned by the Qatari Al Rayan Bank, which is the second largest bank in Qatar and holds the largest number of shares in institutions managed by the Qatari state, while 30% is owned by an investment arm of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund.

Banking conspiracy

Also last year, two former bankers at Barclays Bank were sentenced to prison after a jury in a British court convicted them of conspiring to falsify the interest rate on the Euribor Global Index. Prosecutors alleged that the defendants conspired to defraud by unfairly manipulating the Euribor index data.

Eleven banks and brokers were fined a total of $9 billion to settle allegations of price fraud in a global investigation. Barclays paid a fine of $453 million in 2012, prompting a backlash that forced former CEO Bob Diamond to resign and the start of a British criminal investigation, as well as initiating comprehensive reform measures to the pricing rules.

Brotherhood’s share

Qatar’s banks deal with the Brotherhood, which affected the Qatari National Bank. Libyan National Army (LNA) spokesman Ahmed al-Mesmari accused Qatar in 2017 of financing terrorist groups in his country via Tunisia through Salim Ali al-Jarboui, a Qatari military attaché residing in Tunisia.

The Barclays cases are endless. A British investment firm accused the bank of deliberately misleading the markets about a deal to obtain Qatari funds and avoiding a rescue operation funded by taxpayers during the 2008 global financial crisis.

PCP Capital, owned by English businesswoman Amanda Louise Staveley, is suing Barclays on charges of fundraising fraud in 2008, the British Financial Times reported.

Deceiving the market

At the start of a high-level trial, PCP Capital said before the Supreme Court in London that Barclays “deliberately misled” the market because of the terms of the emergency capital increase from Qatar at the height of the 2008 financial crisis and “concealed” a $3 billion loan from Doha.

Because of Qatar’s open and hidden support for terrorism, the Arab Quartet consisting of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain decided to cut ties with Doha three years ago, demanding Qatar to stop financing terrorist groups. But Doha has been reluctant to do so, causing it to face difficult economic conditions as the boycott enters its fourth year this month.