PESHAWAR: An anti-terrorism court on Saturday handed over the custody of a senior office-bearer of an international non-governmental organisation to the Counter-Terrorism Depart­ment (CTD) of police on a terror financing charge for three days.

Acting on information provided by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the CTD arrested the regional head of Human Concern International, Ali Nawaz, at Khyber Road for allegedly diverting the funds collected in the name of charity to Al Qaeda, said a CTD official.

The official added that the suspect was arrested on the terror financing charge under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

He was presented before the ATC, which handed him over to the CTD for three days for further interrogation.

According to the FIR, there were intelligence rep­orts that Ali Nawaz, Moham­mad Farooq Awan, Shah Rum and Mohammad Nae­em were providing funds to terrorists.

It stated that the CTD received a communiqué from the FIA against them, alleging that they were receiving huge sums in the name of charity, which were being diverted to Al Qaeda to be used for terrorism.

It said that millions of rupees had been transacted from 11 bank accounts of the charity and Mr Nawaz was unable to provide satisfactory answers regarding these funds. The suspect was then booked under Sec­tion 11-N of the ATA, 1997.

Representatives of the international non-governmental organisation were unavailable for comments when approached.

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2019