TerrorismLebanese court sentences a cousin of Qatar’s foreign minister for funding terrorism
Abdulaziz bin Khalifa al-Attiyah, the cousin of Qatar’s foreign minister and a former member of the Qatar Olympic Committee, was convicted in June in absentia by a Lebanese court of funding international terrorism. Al-Attiyah’s conviction is one of many events that ties members of the Qatari government to the funding of terrorism. The Qatari government itself has been funding Jihadists groups in the Middle East and North Africa in an effort to undermine and weaken to influence of moderate forces and governments in the region.
Abdulaziz bin Khalifa al-Attiyah, the cousin of Qatar’s foreign minister and a former member of the Qatar Olympic Committee, was convicted in June in absentia by a Lebanese court of funding international terrorism. He is also believed to be connected to alleged terrorist, Umar al-Qatari, known as the “Wolf of al-Qaeda.”
In May 2012, al-Attiyah was detained in Lebanon, following a tip-off by Western intelligence agencies. Lebanese media reports claim that al-Attiyah met and paid $20,000 to al-Qatari and Shadi al-Mawlawi, another al-Qaeda operative. Al-Qatari was arrested at the Beirut airport as he tried to leave the country with the funds intended for al-Qaeda. He remains in prison in Lebanon to this day. Al-Attiyah, however, was allowed to leave the country before his trial after pressure by Qatar on the Lebanese government. According to some reports, the Qatari government threatened to expel 30,000 Lebanese citizens from the country unless al-Attiyah was released.
The Telegraph points out that al-Attiyah’s conviction is one of many events that ties members of the Qatari government to the funding of terrorism. In August 2013, al-Qaeda linked group al-Nusra Front, instructed donors to channel money to the group through Qatar-based Mahdid Ahl al-Sham Campaign, a group which sought donations to arm Jihadists in Syria and which al-Attiyah helped co-present a fundraising video for. “Mr al-Attiyah’s case appears to show another instance of Qatar’s government taking the side of an alleged terror financier to the dismay of the international community in our fight against groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda,” said David Weinberg, of the U.S.-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, Qatar’s former energy minister and deputy prime minister, and a cousin of al-Attiyah, now heads the country’s “administrative control and transparency agency” responsible for enforcement against money laundering and terrorist funding. Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah, Qatar’s foreign minister, is also a cousin of al-Attiyah, and insisted earlier this month that Qatar “does not support in any way the radical groups who are terrorizing innocent citizens.” It should be noted that the well connected al-Attiyah family comes from the same tribal lineage as the ruling al-Thani family, the Bani Tamim, and is considered the second most prominent clan in Qatar.
Though absent at his June 2014 trial, al-Attiyah was sentenced to seven years in prison for “belonging to an armed terrorist organization and conspiring against state institutions with the purpose of altering the structure of the Lebanese state,” and for “financing terrorist groups and the introduction of weapons to Syria delivered through rebels.”
To this day, Qatar insists that it does not fund terrorism. “We don’t fund extremists. If you talk about certain movements, especially in Syria and Iraq, we all consider them terrorist movements,” said Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar. Adding that, “I know that in America and some countries they look at some movements as terrorist movements … But there are differences. In some countries some people thought that any group with an Islamic background were terrorists and we don’t accept that.”
