Monday, December 23, 2013
Amnesty International
yesterday admitted working with a Swiss-based human rights group whose
Qatari co-founder has been accused of financing Al Qaeda.
The US treasury department said it would impose sanctions on Abdul
Rahman Bin Umair Al Nuaimi, a history professor in Qatar and president
of Al Karama, for raising funds for Al Qaeda and its affiliates in
Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen that at times had amounted to millions of
dollars per month.
The US measures against Mr Al Nuaimi could
spur debate among prominent human rights groups such as Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch about their close association with
Al Karama, which claims to monitor human-rights abuses in Arab
countries.
Al Karama regularly criticises US allies in the Arab
world including the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The charges against Mr
Al Nuaimi could also have a diplomatic impact on American ties in the
region since Qatar is also a US ally.
Amnesty International
acknowledged in an email yesterday that Al Karama has helped it in the
past with information on cases of human rights abuse and added that it
was “unable to confirm” the accuracy of the US allegations. Human Rights
Watch declined to comment.
In its statement, the US treasury
department labelled Mr Al Nuaimi as a “terrorist financier and
facilitator”, freezing his US assets and prohibiting any US citizens
from “doing business” with him. The US provided no evidence indicating how it reached its findings.
The
treasury department charged that Mr Al Nuaimi “provided financial
support” for more than a decade to Al Qaeda and groups affiliated with
it, including Asbat Al Ansar – an Islamist faction operating out of a
Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon – and Al Shabab in Somalia.
It
said Mr Al Nuaimi this year ordered the transfer of almost US$600,000
(Dh2.2 million) to Al Qaeda through its representative in Syria,
Abu-Khalid Al Suri – a figure known to be close to Al Qaeda leader Ayman
Al Zawahiri. Mr Al Nuaimi had planned to transfer another $50,000,
according to the statement, which also alleged that he had passed
information to Al Qaeda.
Furthermore, Mr Al Nuaimi raised
“significant” financial support for Al Qaeda in Iraq and facilitated
ties between the group’s leaders and Qatar-based donors, the US
statement said. He oversaw the transfer of more than $2m a month to Al
Qaeda in Iraq “for a period of time”, according to the US.
Mr Al
Nuaimi and top figures at Al Karama did not return calls or emails
seeking comment over the weekend. Mourad Dhina, Al Karama’s executive
director, was quoted by the US news and commentary website The Daily
Beast on Thursday as saying the sanctions came as a shock and were “not
good news for us”.
However, in a statement posted on Al Karama’s
website on Saturday, Mr Al Nuaimi rejected the US accusations and
threatened to fight the claims “by all legal means”.
He said the
charges were aimed at suppressing his objections to American actions in
the Middle East and were “largely fed by repressive regimes in the
region”.
Mr Al Nuaimi said the accusations “aim to silence me
because of my publicly declared opposition to US policies in the Arab
world and in particular in the Gulf area since the invasion of Iraq in
2003”.
He also said he would quit his post in Al Karama to avoid harming his group’s work.
This
year, Al Karama has criticised Saudi Arabia for illegal detentions and
condemned the UAE for jailing more than 65 people convicted of plotting
an Islamist coup.
The US treasury department statement also issued
sanctions against Abdul Wahab Mohammed Abdul Rahman Al Humayqani,
charging he had used his Yemen-based charity as a cover for funnelling
funds to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP.
Since
mid-2011, Mr Al Humayqani has served as “the acting AQAP amir” in
Yemen’s Al Bayda governorate, according to the US. It added that
suspicions against Mr Al Humayqani include plotting to assassinate
Yemeni officials.
The US statement also said the activities of Mr
Al Nuaimi and Mr Al Humayqani were connected, alleging the former had
given funds to the latter’s Yemeni charity in 2012.
Treasury
department officials indicated that they may target other
non-governmental organisations active in the Middle East which they
suspect were involved in violence against the US or its Gulf allies.
David
Cohen, the US under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence,
said in the statement: “We will continue to work with our partners in
the Gulf to ensure that charitable organisations are not used to support
violence in the region or elsewhere.”
According to Mr Al
Nuaimi, the US move to simultaneously issue sanctions against him and Mr
Al Humayqani may have been driven by Al Karama’s condemnation of US
airstrikes against alleged militants in Yemen. He pledged to take legal
action against the sanctions, including in US courts, and added he would
be willing to talk to US authorities to dismiss their suspicions.
Mr
Al Nuaimi also said he had been banned from entering several Arab
countries because of his criticism of them. While he did not name them,
Mr Dhina of Al Karama told The Daily Beast that they included Saudi
Arabia.