OSCE supports discussion on fight against terrorism financing

The OSCE, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime the Romanian Foreign Ministry have organized on 13 and 14 December 2011 a workshop in Bucharest on preventing and fighting terrorism financing. 

More than 40 participants from 15 OSCE participating States discussed challenges in the identification and freezing of terrorist assets, matters related to processing and handling of confiscated goods, as well as the ways to enhancing regional and transnational co-operation to counter terrorism financing.

“Terrorists use imaginative schemes to prevent their funding sources from being detected by investigators,” said Manuel Marion from the OSCE Action against Terrorism Unit. “Innovative methods and enhanced national, regional and transnational co-operation will help law enforcement agencies effectively address these difficulties in a co-ordinated manner.”

“Terrorists and organized criminal groups rely on networks,” said Ilias Chatzis representing the UNODC Terrorism Prevention Branch. “We need to work together to build up an effective and efficient multilateral response, founded on the rule of law, to deal with the challenges these networks pose to all of us.”

The UN Security Council Resolution 1373 on anti-terrorism and suppressing of financing calls on States to immediately freeze terrorist assets, to increase co-operation and fully implement relevant international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism.