Trinidad court freezes assets of bin Laden’s son

(Trinidad Guardian) High Court judge Maria Wil­son has or­dered that Osama Bin Laden’s son, Hamza Bin Laden, be named a ter­ror­ist in this coun­try, and have all his as­sets frozen.

The or­der was made on March 6.

On March 1, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi filed the mat­ter in the High Court in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 22B of the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act Chap­ter 12:07.

On that same day, Sau­di Ara­bia an­nounced that it had re­voked Bin Laden’s cit­i­zen­ship.

The re­cent de­vel­op­ments have come about in light of the Unit­ed States of­fer­ing US$1 mil­lion for in­for­ma­tion on Bin Laden’s where­abouts.

Bin Laden, 30, is seen as an emerg­ing leader of the Al-Qai­da, the Is­lamist mil­i­tant group his late fa­ther once led.

Bin Laden has called on Al-Qai­da fol­low­ers to at­tack the US and its West­ern al­lies in re­venge for his fa­ther’s killing.

In 2011, Bin Laden’s fa­ther Osama was killed by US spe­cial forces while he was liv­ing in hid­ing in Ab­bot­tabad, Pak­istan.

Ear­li­er this month Bin Laden he had a state­ment is­sued by Al-Qai­da me­dia, in which he spoke of the role of Al-Qai­da in the Ara­bi­an Penin­su­la, threat­ened Sau­di Ara­bia and called for re­volt the pop­u­la­tion of the Ara­bi­an Penin­su­la.

Ac­cord­ing to the High Court doc­u­ments filed by Al-Rawi, “Hamza al­so known as Us­ama al­so known as Muham­mad al­so known as Bin Laden” was born on 9 May, 1989.

“(He was) an­nounced by Aiman Muhammed Ra­bi al-Za­wahiri as an of­fi­cial mem­ber of Al-Qai­da. Has called for fol­low­ers of Al-Qai­da to com­mit ter­ror at­tacks. Is seen as the most prob­a­ble suc­ces­sor of al-Za­wahiri,” the High Court or­der stat­ed.

Al-Za­wahiri is the cur­rent leader of the Al-Qai­da.

Ac­cord­ing the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, Bin Laden made the Sanc­tions List “for hav­ing con­tributed to the fi­nanc­ing, to the or­ga­ni­za­tion, the fa­cil­i­ta­tion, prepa­ra­tion or ex­e­cu­tion of acts or ac­tiv­i­ties of Al-Qai­da, in as­so­ci­a­tion with this group, un­der its name or on its be­half or in sup­port of it, and have re­cruit­ed on be­half of Al-Qai­da or oth­er­wise sup­port­ed acts com­mit­ted by Al-Qai­da or ac­tiv­i­ties to which it re­lates in­di­cat­ing that it is as­so­ci­at­ed with this group”.

Wil­son or­dered that pur­suant to Sec­tion 22B (3) (b) of the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act that prop­er­ty:

(i) owned or con­trolled by Bin Laden,

(ii) whol­ly or joint­ly owned or con­trolled, di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, by Bin Laden; and

(iii) de­rived or gen­er­at­ed from funds or oth­er as­sets owned or con­trolled di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly by Bin Laden, be frozen.

The Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit had the or­der on the con­sol­i­dat­ed list on its web­site.

Al-Rawi has to re­view the sit­u­a­tion every six months in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 22B(9) of the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act.

In No­vem­ber 2015, an An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Desk was es­tab­lished by the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to serve as “the au­tho­rised fa­cil­i­tat­ing hub for tight co­or­di­na­tion among do­mes­tic le­gal, law en­force­ment and in­tel­li­gence agen­cies and col­lab­o­ra­tion with our in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners”.

The High Court has grant­ed over 350 or­ders in Trinidad and To­ba­go against in­di­vid­u­als and en­ti­ties since then.

More about Hamza

In March 2018, Bin Laden had a state­ment is­sued by Al-Qai­da me­dia, in which he spoke of the role of Al-Qai­da in the Ara­bi­an Penin­su­la, threat­ened Sau­di Ara­bia and called for re­volt the pop­u­la­tion of the Ara­bi­an Penin­su­la.

In Jan­u­ary 2018, Bin Laden broad­cast a video record­ing on be­half of Al-Qai­da, aimed at re­cruit­ing among the lis­ten­ers, in which he at­tacked Sau­di Ara­bia and ad­vo­cat­ed the over­throw of the monar­chy.

In May 2017, Bin Laden broad­cast an au­dio mes­sage, al­so on be­half of al-Qai­da, in which he asked sup­port­ers to com­mit at­tacks.

In 2016, Al-Qai­da broad­cast an­oth­er au­dio mes­sage in which Bin Laden was threat­en­ing re­venge against the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca and warned Amer­i­cans that they would be tar­get­ed in their coun­try and abroad. In ad­di­tion, the same year, Bin Laden en­cour­aged tribes liv­ing in Sau­di Ara­bia to join al-Qai­da-af­fil­i­at­ed el­e­ments in Yemen to wage a war against the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia.

In 2015, Bin Laden called for at­tack­ing Amer­i­can, French and Is­raeli in­ter­ests by com­mit­ting acts of ter­ror­ism in the cap­i­tals of West­ern coun­tries on be­half of al-Qai­da.

Hamza bin Laden has been giv­en a more promi­nent role in Al-Qai­da and is be­lieved to be able to car­ry out his threats. His pop­u­lar­i­ty is grow­ing among Al-Qai­da sup­port­ers and he is most like­ly to take over at the head of a new al-Qai­da. It seeks to ex­pand Al-Qai­da’s net­work and, by means of a new wave of ter­ror­ist at­tacks in ma­jor cities in the West, to in­crease its no­to­ri­ety and to an­nounce the re­turn of Al-Qai­da, of which it would be the new chef.