The United Nations has removed the names of 45 members and organisations associated with the Al Qaeda and the Taliban from its sanctions list after the first ever review of 488 blacklisted individuals and entities.
The names of those removed from the list include 35 members and organisations associated with Al Qaeda and 10 from Taliban.
"We were able to do the first review after nine years. In 75 per cent of these cases, we were able to receive new information," said Thomas Mayr-Harting, Austria's ambassador and the chair of the Security Council panel that maintains the list.
The 488 names were discussed over 38 meetings. Mayr-Harting said the 443 names, 132 from the Taliban and 311 from the Al Qaeda, were confirmed on the list, though a decision on 66 names was still being debated.
"It would be nonetheless unrealistic to expect big movements on the remaining list," said Mayr-Harting, highlighting that 270 names on the list had not been reviewed since 2001. Under the new rules of the sanctions regimes, the names of everyone on the list would have to be reviewed every three years.
The list, however, continues to suffer from several anomalies including the presence of the names of 30 dead people in it. Recently, eight dead people were removed from the list but the process for delisting names of the deceased is slow. Under the new rules, the names of the dead people have to be reviewed every six months.
"It is not east to get dead people off the list. We have to have convincing proof that they are really dead and also we have to have information on what happened to their assets and this in many cases takes some time, but this is work that will have to continue," Mayr-Harting said, adding there were other entries on the list that lack identifiers, which causes a problem as dozens of people can have the same name.
One positive development, on the other hand, was the appointment of an Ombudsperson to consider delisting requests received from individuals and entities, he said.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon appointed Kimberly Prost, a Canadian who served as a judge of the war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, as an Ombudsperson in June this year.
The sanctions committee was set up under a resolution passed by the Security Council in 1999. It imposes travel bans, an asset freeze and an arms embargo on any individual or entity associated with the Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Five members of the Taliban were de-listed from the list of the UN Security Council on Friday. These included former UN ambassador Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad Awrang, author Abdul Salam Zaeef and Abdul Satar Paktin.
It also included two 'deceased' members, identified as Abdul Samad Khaksar and Muhammad Islam Mohammadi. In order to facilitate political reconciliation, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has asked for the removal of certain names from the list and the UN has expressed support to this initiative. In January, five members were taken off the list.
Those removed were former foreign minister Abdul Wakil Mutawakil; former deputy foreign affairs minister Abdul Hakin; former deputy commerce minister Faiz Mohammad Faizan; a former official under the Taliban regime Shams-us-Safa and Mohammad Musa.
The sanctions committee does not have power to investigate individual cases on its own and relies heavily on the inputs of member-states. Speaking on whether Pakistan was helpful in providing information, Richard Barretto, coordinator of the sanctions list said, "We can say that we are perfectly satisfied with the cooperation we get from the Pakistani authorities."
While it was unlikely that the UN sanctions committee would carry out its own investigation in the future, Barretto noted that waiting for member-states to respond caused delays.
"I can't imagine that we are going to go down to the Afghan-Pakistan border area and sniff around there to much," Barretto said.
"It is a slow process as thing goes to a mission, goes to the foreign ministry, and then goes out to various people. It may take sometime to reach people who can actually answer some questions," he continued. "So if we could go direct to them it would be much easier."
