Britain freezes terror group assets

British Chancellor Gordon Brown today ordered financial institutions to freeze any funds held on behalf of the terror group which kidnapped and murdered Ken Bigley in Iraq.

Mr Brown told the Bank of England, acting as agents for the Treasury, to instruct all financial institutions to put a hold on “any funds which they hold for or on behalf of the group Jama’at al-Tawhid Wa’al-Jihad (JTJ)”.

It will now be a criminal offence for any financial institution to deal in any way with funds held by JTJ and any existing funds cannot be released.

It was not immediately clear whether the Treasury knows if JTJ has any assets in the UK.

The UK Treasury said the asset freeze was authorised under the Terrorism (United Nations Measures) Order 2001.

That gives the power to block the assets of anyone “who commits, attempts to commit, facilitates or participates in the commission of acts of terrorism” and those associated with them.

The freeze notice is being e-mailed to 600 financial institutions.

Mr Brown told the Commons he had “today instructed the Bank of England to freeze with immediate effect the assets of JTJ, the terrorist group which publicly admitted involvement in the murders of Kenneth Bigley and five other hostages and has perpetrated a range of terrorist acts across Iraq”.

He said the decision had come out of meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

“Following our discussions we are working with international partners to deny JTJ access to funds across the world. We must do all in our power to ensure there is no hiding place for terrorists and no hiding place for those who finance terrorism.”