30dec03

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UN adds Bosnian charity director to al Qaeda list.

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The United Nations yesterday added the director of a Bosnian charity to its list of individuals whose assets should be frozen due to suspected ties to Osama bin Laden or his al Qaeda network.

Safet Durguti, 36, was added to the U.N. list at the request of the United States and Saudi Arabia. While he was born in Orahovac, Kosovo, his nationality is unknown, the United Nations said.

The goal of the U.N. list, which is maintained by a U.N. Security Council committee and currently has more than 300 names of businesses, individuals and organizations, is to deprive suspected extremists of the money and other resources they need to carry out attacks.

Putting groups and individuals on the list obliges the United Nations' 191 member-nations to freeze their funds and other assets and block their movements.

Durguti is the director of a charity called Vazir, based in the Bosnian city of Travnik.

The United States and Saudi Arabia have concluded that Vazir was simply another name for the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a Saudi-based charity that was placed on the U.N. list in March 2002, the U.S. Treasury Department said last week.

Vazir was formed in May 2003 as an association for sports, culture and education but was based in the same business space as Al-Haramain, it said.

The United Nations also added Hochburg AG, a company based in Vaduz, Liechtenstein, to its list.

The firm is a successor to a company called the Ba Taqwa For Commerce And Real Estate Company Ltd, whose assets were ordered frozen in 2002.

Hochburg and BA Taqwa share the same business registration number, and records in Liechtenstein show that BA Taqwa was renamed Hochburg AG early in 2002, the U.S. Treasury said.

[Source: UN, Reuters, 30Dec03]

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