BAKU. July 22, 2008: The seminar on the society’s awareness of prevention of money laundering and sponsoring terrorism has taken place today in Hyatt Regency hotel in Baku within the framework of AZPAC project (Strategy for Support to Anti-Corruption Policy in Azerbaijan).

AZPAC project is implemented by the Azeri government (Corruption Prevention Commission), USAID, the US Justice Department and the Council of Europe (CE).

Ali Huseynov, head of the Milli Mejlis (Azeri parliament) Commission for Legal Policy and State Building, said the draft law on money laundering prevention has been adopted in the first reading.  Veronica Kotek, special representative of the CE Secretary General, mentioned two European Conventions – Convention on Illegally Derived Incomes adopted in 2003, to which Azerbaijan has joined, and Convention on Prevention of Sponsoring Terrorism by Dirty Money adopted in May 2008, which Azerbaijan has not joined yet.  Kotek said the CE had created a group to monitor the situation in the CE member-states.  She is sure that law on money laundering prevention would be adopted in Azerbaijan and the financial intelligence service would be created.

The US ambassador to Azerbaijan Anne Derse said bribery and fraud brought huge profits.  “The countries, which lacked the mechanisms to control this process, are at risk to stay unprotected to this evil,” Derse said.  She added that 20 years ago Economic Cooperation and Development Organization created the financial operation group to struggle against money laundering and 33 countries joined that organization.  The group has worked out 40 recommendations on money laundering and 9 on sponsoring terrorism (40+9).  These recommendations include: 

   a) legal demands;

   b) financial demands;

   c) creation of financial intelligence;

   d) international cooperation.

   Azerbaijan is a member and partner of the financial operation group. Although money laundering is regarded as a crime in Azerbaijan, the country does not apply demands of legal and financial regimes recommended against money laundering.  “These shortcomings must be eliminated in accordance with the law on money laundering,” the US ambassador added.  She regretfully stated that the current variant of the law did not contain all the elements to struggle against the money laundering and sponsoring of terrorism.  Some clauses in the law must be revised to ensure its correspondence to international standards, said Anne Derse.   She stressed that Azerbaijan was the only in the Council of Europe, where financial intelligence unit had not been created, yet.

Rufat Aslanly, deputy chairman of the Board of the National Bank of Azerbaijan, said the law on prevention of legalization of illegally obtained money and other property and sponsoring of terrorism had been drafted in correspondence with the recommendations of “40+9”.  The document consisted of 4 sections and 22 chapters.  He presented the draft law to the participants of the seminar.  It listed the operations related to money and other property, which are liable to monitoring, and particularly, monetary operations, which arose suspicion of sponsoring terrorism and operations with bank accounts of foreign political leaders, money earnings from anonymous accounts, which are beyond Azerbaijan’s jurisdiction, and transfers to the similar anonymous accounts and etc. 

Peter Strasser, ex-chief of New Orleans Justice Department’s office for prevention organized crime, and Daniel Thelesklaf, Council of Europe’s expert and ex-director of Swiss Financial Monitoring Agency, also attended the seminar as experts (Turan).