Why quietly? Best not to call too much attention to your dhimmitude. Then some folks who still have an attachment to the human rights that are trampled by Sharia might object. “U.N. Drops Muslim Brotherhood Figure From ‘Terrorist Finance’ List,” by Mark “Must Be Loving This” Hosenball for Newsweek, March 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):
The U.N. Security Council has quietly dropped Youssef Nada, a prominent financial and diplomatic representative of the Muslim Brotherhood, from an international sanctions list directed at curbing the activities of alleged terrorist financiers. The delisting of Nada, by the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee, was announced by this official notice posted on the Security Council’s Web site. In addition to Nada himself, the notice declares that two businesses associated with him, Waldenberg AG of Liechtenstein and Youssef M. Nada & Co. GMBH of Vienna, also have been removed from the U.N. sanctions list.
The Security Council’s announcement does not explain why the council decided to drop financial sanctions against Nada and his companies–sanctions intended to curb their ability to conduct financial activities anywhere in the world. But Victor Comras, a former adviser on financial sanctions to the U.S. State Department and, later, an adviser to the committee that produced the sanctions lists, says he find the U.N. action troubling. “To my mind this is a great mistake. I’m kind of mystified by it,” Comras told Declassified. When Nada was put on the U.N. sanctions list, it was done with great public fanfare, Comras said. But when the U.N. decided to take his name off, it was done with a minimum of public discussion.
In an e-mail, Comras added: “Even though Nada may no longer be involved in funding Al Qaeda, he has made it clear a number of times that he will continue as a major financial supporter of Hamas . . . As you know, Nada never really suffered from the [U.N. listing]. He continued to live well, travel, and, most likely, to access and manipulate his assets through his family and others.” Nada has previously denied any involvement with Al Qaeda.
Comras also noted that given the fact that all listing and delisting decisions by the U.N. sanctions committee have to be unanimous, at some point, in his view, the Obama administration would have had to signal that it was willing to go along with Nada’s delisting. Nada and his companies were placed on a terrorist-finance sanctions list maintained by the U.S. Treasury before they were added to U.N.’s list; according to the list currently available on the Treasury Department’s Web site, Nada and his companies are still on it.
In a statement, a Treasury spokesperson said that the U.S. has supported “the removal of those individuals who are no longer appropriate for listing pursuant to that specific regime.” But the spokesperson added that Nada remains on the Treasury’s U.S.-only sanctions list….