Will FATF take Pak off grey list?

The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) will decide this week whether Pakistan should be kept in its "grey list" for further monitoring of its terror-promoting activities. The FATF meeting is being held in Singapore this week. Grey listing means FATF has placed a country under increased monitoring to check its progress on measures against money laundering and terrorism financing. The "grey list" is also known as the "increased monitoring list."

Pakistan expects the much-awaited welcome news as the FATF is expected to move the country out of its grey list during the two-day plenary session starting on Friday in Paris. State Minister for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar is currently in Paris to attend the meeting, Geo News reported.

The FATF will hold its first plenary under the two-year Singapore Presidency of T Raja Kumar on Friday and Saturday. "Delegates representing 206 members of the Global Network and observer organisations, including the International Monetary Fund, the UN, the World Bank, Interpol and the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units, will participate in the Working Group and Plenary meetings in Paris," said the Paris-based global watchdog on dirty money.

The watchdog will announce the outcome at a press conference after the meeting concludes. The country has remained on the ignoble list for almost 52 months, Geo News reported. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, speaking to the media in Washington last week, assured that Pakistan will soon move out of the grey list. The FATF tasked Pakistan to implement two different action plans simultaneously, and the country has accomplished the conditions of the watchdog.

In June this year, the FATF expressed satisfaction that the country complied with all 34 points and recommended an onsite visit to verify the progress made by the country. Islamabad made high-level political commitments to address these deficiencies under a 27-point action plan. But later the number of action points was enhanced to 34. The country had since been vigorously working with FATF and its affiliates to strengthen its legal and financial systems against money laundering and terror financing to meet international standards in line with the 40 recommendations of the FATF.

Pakistan has been kept on the FATF monitoring list and faced global financial sanctions for the last four years over its role in financing and sheltering terror leaders and organisations. However, as its relations with the West improve, Pakistan is likely to get off the list with US support.

Pakistan has consistently made noises about dismantling terror networks by taking action on money laundering and terror financing, but sources say that terror leaders are sheltering in Pakistan with their networks intact. Just weeks back a US court had said that terror financing by Habib Bank led to attacks that killed and injured 370 people in Afghanistan during 2021 and 2019. Nearly 370 individual complainants are demanding compensation from Pakistan's largest private bank. A serious allegation is that Habib Bank has financed Al-Qaeda's terror activities as well.

Over the years, several other Pakistani banks have faced scrutiny for money laundering and terror financing. American authorities have fined many Pakistani banks for suspicious transactions. A FATF team had visited Pakistan in September to check whether terror groups and their networks had been dismantled or not.

Around the same time, investigative reports found that terror groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) were highly active and were openly delivering relief work to flood victims.

Investigations done by the Paris-based Pakistani journalist, Taha Siddiqui, found that LeT had resurfaced in all four regions-Punjab, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh to supposedly help in flood relief work but in reality to recruit people for terror activities.

The investigations also found that the terror group was collecting donations under a new name-Allah-u-Akbar Tehreek, in close collaboration with Pakistani military and other organisations.

The two-day meeting of the FATF that begins on October 20, Thursday, will be attended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United Nations, the World Bank, Interpol and other international agencies.

Even as the FATF gets ready for the Singapore meet, #BlacklistPakistan #SanctionPakistan and #FATF surge on social media handles.

The FATF news comes on the back of the discovery of hundreds of bodies found on the rooftop of a Pakistani hospital in Multan. With no explanations from the government, activists have alleged that the bodies are related to the custodial deaths of Baloch and Sindhi people.