Brussels, 30/04/2007 (Agence Europe) - The rapporteur of the Parliamentary assembly for the Council of Europe into illegal CIA activities in Europe, Dick Marty of Switzerland, said last week that he was prepared to come down against the principle of the list of terrorist organisations drawn up by the United Nations Security Council, but also the one kept by the European Union. In accordance with this “UN list”, which is drawn up under top-secret conditions by a committee based in New York (the 1267 Committee) by request of the members of the Security Council, the UN member states are obliged to seize the financial and economic assets of people, entities and organisations suspected of taking part in terrorist activities or found guilty of this kind of activity. Taking the floor on the sidelines of a major Council of Europe conference held in Strasbourg on 25 April on the subject of terrorism, Mr Marty spoke out against this method, which he described as “blatant injustice”, because, he said, the people on this list (which includes 362 people, and 125 companies or organisations) are not informed of the fact, have no possibility of putting across their own side of the story, and have no legal recourse whatsoever.
Nor do the conclusions of the Swiss rapporteur spare the European Union, which comes in for criticism on two counts. Firstly, the list established by the 1267 Committee - Resolution 1267 (1999) of the Security Council - invested a “committee of sanctions” with the power of creating and updating a list of people or other entities believed to have links to Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or the Taliban. Due to the fact that international law takes precedence over Community law, this list is directly taken up by the Community regulation (881/2002 of 27 May 2002) and, as a result, is directly applicable in the Member States of the Union (financial, banking and insurance sector). Secondly, the general framework, applicable to terrorist persons and entities with no links to Al Qaeda, required the Security Council to set in place a mechanism by which a list of targeted entities was established. To this end, resolution 1373 (2001) effectively provides for a freezing of the assets of persons or entities not linked to Al Qaeda, but having committed or been complicit in terrorist actions. It is, however, incumbent on the member states themselves to draft this list. It was for this reason that the EU decided to create a joint list, which features organisations inside or outside the EU subject to the freezing of funds and assets. Mr Marty therefore indicated that he would extend his investigation to the blacklist managed by the Union, about which doubts subsist over the way it is drawn up by the Council of the European Union (EUROPE 9412 and 9400). (bc)