Algeria International Efforts To Combat The Financing Of Terrorism Are Insufficient

Algeria considers that the current international efforts to combat the financing of terrorism in all its dimensions remain “inadequate”, the ambassador and adviser to the Foreign Minister’s Office, Al-Hawas Riache, said.

“Algeria is fighting to criminalize the payment of ransoms at the level of the United Nations organization, because it enabled kidnappings that were carried out by terrorist groups and that reached more than 5,000 hostages from the payment of millions of dollars, as the average ransom that was paid reached between $ 3 and $ 4 million”.

Speaking at a workshop on “Best International Practices on the Treatment and Prevention of Kidnapping for Ransom” that was organized by the UN Center for Counter-terrorism and the African Center for Studies and Research on Terrorism, Riache said on Wednesday that Algeria, which initiated the hostage-taking memorandum, considers that the current international efforts to combat the financing of terrorism in all its dimensions, remain “inadequate” to “effective combat” of this scourge.

“Algeria is fighting at the level of the UN to criminalize the payment of ransoms.It proposed the hosting of an African Union workshop on this issue, with the aim of reaching an additional “Protocol to the 1999 Convention on the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and the Criminalization of the Payment of Ransoms”, which are two points that were a “priority” for African action to combat the financing of terrorism”.

The official revealed the figures of the US Center for Counter-Terrorism that was prepared in 2011 and counted 5554 hostages that were detained by terrorist groups and required the pay of a sum of between $3 to 4 million for each hostage” .

“This amount rose to $9 million according to sources from the insurance sector”.