Swiss Prosecutors Call Halt To Terror-Financing Investigation

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawandTax-News.com, Brussels

06 June 2005

The Swiss authorities have called a halt to a three-and-a-half year investigation into an Islamic firm which the United States has accused of helping to fund the terrorist network al-Qaida.

The Swiss Federal Prosecutor's Office announced its decision to pull the investigation last week after the Federal Criminal Court ordered it to either prosecute the Al-Taqwa Management Organisation, which has been renamed Nada Management Organisation, or cease its probe.

A spokesman for the Prosecutor's Office told Reuters that there was insufficient evidence for the case to go to trial, adding that "several key elements" were missing in the chain of evidence.

The Swiss authorities cooperated with several other jurisdictions during the investigation, including neighbouring Liechtenstein, which froze the accounts of an affiliate firm, the fiduciary company Asat Trust, and Saudi Arabia, where the group was said to hold key accounting documents.

The Prosecutor's Office spokesman also revealed that the network may have extended its operations to the Bahamas, although judicial assistance from the Bahamian authorities was apparently not forthcoming.

The Al-Taqwa organisation, which operated along Islamic principles, was founded in 1988 by its Egyptian-born managing director, Youssef M. Nada, and his Syrian-born associate, Ali Himmat. It was based in the southern Swiss canton of Ticino until being liquidated in December 2001.

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