Indonesia to form antimoney-laundering task force soon<\/p>\n
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Indonesia has taken another step to detecting and freezing the
\nassets of terrorists here, as the government has announced it has
\nissued a presidential decree to appoint the head of the country's
\nfirst antimoney-laundering commission.<\/p>\n
The appointment will follow the creation of the commission
\nitself, which may also help get Indonesia off the Financial
\nAction Task Force's (FATF) blacklist.<\/p>\n
A statement from the Office of the Coordinating Minister for
\nthe Economy said on Friday that heading the commission would be
\nYunus Husein, currently Bank Indonesia's deputy director for
\nlegal affairs.<\/p>\n
\"Yunus Husein is the head and he has been assigned to
\nimmediately plan the organizational structure (of the commission)
\nso that it can function effectively,\" said the statement, without
\ndetailing when the presidential decree had been issued.<\/p>\n
No one at Bank Indonesia was available to provide details on
\nthe decree or say when the commission would start working.<\/p>\n
The announcement comes as international pressure mounts
\nagainst Indonesia to crack down on suspected terrorists and
\neliminate their financial network.<\/p>\n
\"We (Bank Indonesia) are very serious about going after
\nterrorist assets,\" said Bank Indonesia senior deputy governor
\nAnwar Nasution.<\/p>\n
He said that Bank Indonesia expected to work closely with the
\npolice and the Attorney General's Office to find terrorist
\nassets, but added the Bank had not found traces of their assets
\nas yet.<\/p>\n
The government expects the commission to implement Antimoney-
\nlaundering Law No 15\/2002, which was issued last April.<\/p>\n
Under that law, the commission will mainly gather and analyze
\ninformation related to suspicious bank transactions and report
\nits findings to the police and prosecutor's office.<\/p>\n
Neither the commission nor Bank Indonesia can freeze assets
\nwithout the authority of the police or prosecutors.<\/p>\n
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes against the
\nU.S., Indonesia was asked to help sever terrorists from their
\nfunding sources by freezing their assets.<\/p>\n
The commission, once established, could get Indonesia out of
\nFATF's blacklist, under which banks and businesses here are
\nsubject to greater scrutiny from foreign banks and
\nmultinationals.<\/p>",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
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