ISLAMABAD: Former Interior Minister Ex-Senator Abdul Rehman Malik has expressed grave concerns over the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) decision to retain Pakistan on its grey list despite the country meeting 26 of the 27 conditions, and termed the decision as FATF’s discrimination towards Pakistan.
“Rather than be taken out from the ‘grey list’ for its significant progress on FATF Action Plan, Pakistan was handed over with a new set of six-point action plan which prove FATF’s discrimination towards Pakistan,” he said while addressing a press conference here Saturday.
Former Interior Minister Ex-Senator Rehman Malik said that biased and pressurized FATF continues to keep Pakistan in grey list despite best performance and adding new six demands are unjustified and gross discrimination towards Pakistan. “It looks that FATF has enhanced monitoring on Pakistan with ill intensions,” he said. The former Interior Minister said that FATF has stated that all items on both action plans needed to be addressed and goals fulfilled for Pakistan to exit the grey list.
He said President Pleyer said even after the last remaining item on the original action plan was addressed, delisting would not occur as there was a parallel action plan that was also given and the additional items by the Asia Pacific Group would also need to be addressed.
He said that basically linking the delisting with these new five points and the completion of ongoing investigation and prosecution is cumbersome procedure to meet with the condition of demonstrating that TF (Terrorism Financing) investigations and prosecutions target persons and entities acting on behalf or at the direction of the designated. He said he had earlier predicted that FATF is not going to take Pakistan out of its grey list due to political pressure and influence by some countries.
He said it was a discriminatory treatment that Pakistan was being retained on its grey list despite addressing 26 points out of 27 points and the remaining one point also addressed more than 95 %.
He said that Pakistan has suffered a huge economic loss of more than $38 billion because of FATF’s decision. “Despite clear evidence of involvement in terror financing, money laundering, and now even in a heinous crime of nuclear proliferation, India is being spared and no legal action is being initiated against it.” He said the people of Pakistan are justified to pose few questions from FATF as to why Pakistan is being dealt with differently. “India is sponsoring terrorism through heavy financing using RSS and Daesh in Kashmir, involved in nuclear proliferation and money laundering, why not being made the subject of legal action by FATF”? He questioned President FATF that why FATF has not investigated the terror financing by India to Daesh?
To a question on changing situation in Afghanistan, Rehman said the US withdrawal from Afghanistan without a political solution will have a dangerous impact on the region as the Taliban are inching towards Kabul. He said Pakistan played a major role in arranging the Doha dialogue for which Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa's efforts are highly appreciable.
