Call for change to terror financing law

13 December 2005

BRUSSELS — The judiciary’s anti-money laundering unit CFI cannot track down terrorist funds as instructed, deputy chief Philippe de Koster has said.

“The anti-money laundering legislation is not geared to this sort of specific problem,” solicitor general De Koster said.

“Our information exchange with police and security services should also be different.”

The CFI has investigated since its establishment in 1993 the laundering of money allegedly originating from terrorists, newspaper ‘De Tijd’ reported on Tuesday.

Since January 2004, it has also been in charge of gathering information over the possible financial backers of terrorists.

However, De Koster said these two tasks were totally different and the government made a mistake to incorporate them under one law.

“Our money laundering law is appropriate for detecting money from crimes that have already been committed,” the solicitor said.

De Koster said the law is not suitable to investigate the financing of terrorism, where the crime has not yet been committed.

“For that, we need other legal means,” he said.

Subject: Belgian news