Victor Comras's op-ed in Washington Post: "Following Terrorists' Money"

By Andrew Cochran

Contributing Expert Victor Comras's op-ed in today's Washington Post, "Following Terrorists' Money," (free registration required) points out that the lack of long-term success in stopping terrorist financing is due, in part, because "Turning intelligence into actionable evidence for civil designation or criminal prosecutions, has proved exceedingly difficult. There are heavy constraints on sharing intelligence and, even when it is shared with investigators, special efforts are required to come up with open-source evidence that can confirm the intelligence and stand up in court. This is why the Swiss had to drop its criminal case against Youssef Nada and al Taqwa and why even the successful terrorism funding investigations usually end up with plea bargains on lesser charges." Moreover, other publicly known sources of terrorist funding, such as Ahmed Idris Nasreddin and Yassin Qadi, and large charities, including branches of the Saudi-based Al Haramain Foundation, continue operations untouched. Contributing Expert Doug Farah pointed out here that there were few resources available to translate the huge pile of documents seized from al Taqwa after the 9-11 attacks.

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