Terror Financiers are Living Freely in Qatar, US Discloses

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The two Qataris — Khalifa Muhammad Turki al-Subaiy and Abd al-Rahman bin Umayr al-Nuaymi — are living in Doha, the country’s capital, and are free to go as they please, according to David Cohen, the US Treasury under-secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

Mr Cohen has accused Qatar and its near neighbour Kuwait of being “permissive jurisdictions for terrorist financing” but until now the fate of a number of money men — identified as Specially Designated Global Terrorists by the US government — has not been known.
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Dr David Weinberg, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank investigating Qatar’s links to terror funding, said Mr Cohen’s recent speech had “damned Qatar and Kuwait with faint praise”.

He added: “The notion that he would return from meetings in Doha only to declare that Nuaymi and Subaiy are enjoying legal impunity there proves meaningful cooperation behind the scenes is virtually nonexistent.

“It suggests maybe the Qataris are quite happy being a permissive jurisdiction for terrorist finance. “It may also bear noting that the previous emir of Qatar has reportedly praised Nuaymi as his old friend.

“Arrests, indictments and convictions are only one dimension of whether Qatar is taking the fight against terrorism seriously, but historically it is one of several dimensions in which the [ruling] al-Thani family has miserably failed the test. Doha’s token participation in air strikes against the Islamic State was intended to show that they are on our side in the fight against terror, but these sorts of revelations really put to the test whether Qatar can be considered a reliable friend and ally.”
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