OSCE to host international conference on combating the financing of terrorism

VIENNA, 8 November 2005 - A number of international organizations including NATO and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), together with a high-level delegation from the US State Department, will join senior OSCE officials tomorrow for a meeting aimed at blocking the channels through which terrorism is financed.

Sessions spread over three days will examine the international framework for combating terrorist financing presented from different viewpoints including those of the United Nations, the Council of Europe and the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism.

Participants will also be looking at the issues involved in building a domestic regime to combat terrorist financing, ranging from drafting and amending legislation, detecting and reporting suspicious transactions and refining investigative tools and techniques. In addition they will examine how to prevent charities from being used illicitly to move terrorist money and improving government regulation and self-regulation mechanisms.

Although the event itself, which runs from 9 to 11 November, is not open to the public, media representatives are invited to attend a short press conference at 9.30 on 9 November in the Hofburg Congress Centre, room 201.

The platform is set to include: Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, Secretary General, OSCE; Henry A. Crumpton, Co-ordinator for Counter-terrorism, US State Department; Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director UNODC; and Patrick Hardouin, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Regional, Economic and Security Affairs, NATO.

For admittance to the Hofburg Congress Centre, media representatives should present either an OSCE accreditation badge or a valid press card to the security desk, located in the main entrance from Heldenplatz.