French Senator demands probe into Qatari terror financier’s use of UN loopholes

A French Senator called on the UN and international banking authorities to investigate how, according to reports, a Qatari terror financier on the UN sanctions list was provided with “banking facilities” by state-owned Qatar National Bank (QNB).

In an opinion article written for The Hill, French Senator, Nathalie Goulet, said that “it is impossible to assess the potential harm that has been caused without an extensive and transparent investigation,” adding that “the United Nations needs to investigate why loopholes in its own procedures allowed this breach.”

According to a report published in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Khalifa al-Subaiy, who was convicted on charges of funding and enabling terrorism, and is on the UN terror blacklist, was allowed by the UN to withdraw a monthly amount of up to $10,000 from frozen accounts for “basic necessities.”

“The revelations in the WSJ should serve as a wake-up to Europe and the rest of the civilized world. For someone to make it to the UN sanctions list is not an easy achievement. Al-Subaiy is someone well known to the authorities, including, supposedly, banks,” said Goulet.

“He was associated with the most dangerous of terrorists, responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, that changed the face of the world. As he is on the UN sanctions list, he is not the sort of person who can be given the benefit of the doubt and certainly not the sort of person who deserves leniency,” she added.

Goulet had called for not only the UN to investigate the loopholes that allowed a convicted terror financier to receive up to $120,000 a year, but that Qatar conduct an investigation and report “to the international community why it has allowed an individual on the UN sanctions list to have banking facilities through its most global bank.”

In addition to the UN and Qatari investigations, Goulet called on QNB to “conduct its own investigation on the matter and offer to law enforcement authorities around the world, particularly where the bank operates, details of transactions carried out” by al-Subaiy.

Goulet also said that banking regulators in countries where QNB “operates should conduct their own investigations on why this failure happened and employ urgent remedial measures both to ensure any potential damage done is mitigated and that no such potential breaches take place.”