The scandal of the Security Council experts .. No evidence of the Central Bank's accusations
English - Monday 29 March 2021 الساعة 07:27 pm
Aden, NewsYemen:
The group of international experts on Yemen retracted the accusations directed against the government and the Central Bank of Yemen regarding “money laundering and corruption,” in a move described as an unprecedented scandal in the history of the Security Council experts, according to Talal Al-Hajj, Al-Arabiya correspondent for the UN organization.
After the annual report of the "experts" team, issued on January 22, accused the Yemeni government of corruption and money laundering, the team's coordinator recanted these accusations, saying that "they have no evidence of that."
The retraction came in a letter from the team's coordinator, Sri Lankan lawyer Dakshini Rwanthika Gunaratna, to the Security Council on March 26, confirming that after reviewing the financial side of the report and accusing the Yemeni government and the Central Bank of corruption and money laundering, the review did not show any evidence of charges of corruption or money laundering.
In a series of tweets on Twitter, followed by "NewsYemen", Talal Al-Hajj said that he had seen a copy of the coordinator's message in which she asked the United Nations Secretariat to take the necessary steps to update the text of the final report submitted to the Security Council issued on January 25, that is. Simply make drastic adjustments to it.
He stated that the letter confirmed to the Sanctions Committee and the Security Council that from their initial review conducted by the team, no evidence of corruption, money laundering, or elite takeover had emerged, and that the information they had indicated that after the injection of the Saudi deposit, food prices stabilized in 2019.
The coordinator of the team confirmed that it aims to review several sections and will present its final conclusions to the Sanctions Committee and the Security Council in a timely manner, according to the letter. She also asked the Council to ignore Section IXB and Annex 28, as well as the relevant text in the executive summary, until the final evaluation is done.
At the beginning of this year, a report issued by the UN experts group accused the legitimate government of money laundering and corruption, and the report said that “the team’s observers discovered that the central bank violated the rules for changing currencies, manipulated the currency market, and laundered a large part of the Saudi deposit with a complex scheme for money laundering.”
The Yemeni government had said that the report was "based on incorrect conclusions," affirming that it always deals with transparency and full cooperation with the sanctions committee, while the Central Bank of Yemen described these allegations as "misleading", expressing its surprise at the issuance of this report without applying the rules and systematic procedures. To be followed in reaching the facts and logical conclusions.
