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<p>There is currently around £85,000 worth of funds frozen in the UK belonging to
individuals and organisations associated with ISIL and Al-Qaida. The majority of these
individuals and organisations are sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council
and appear on its ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions List. As this List concerns
individuals and organisations with both ISIL and Al-Qaida affiliation, the UK has
not attempted to make this delineation when reporting the value of frozen funds under
this sanctions regime in the UK.</p><p> </p><p>An asset freeze does not involve any
change in ownership of funds or economic resources, or require funds or economic resources
to be seized by the Government or Police. Accordingly, HM Treasury does not hold or
own the assets of any sanctioned persons.</p><p> </p><p>Instead, an asset freeze operates
by preventing sanctioned persons from accessing either their own funds or receiving
funds from others. HM Treasury alerts financial and other relevant institutions when
individuals or organisations are sanctioned by the UN or the UK, and those institutions
must then freeze the assets they hold. Anybody who contravenes these sanctions risks
committing a criminal offence. The result is that the assets of sanctioned individuals
and organisations are ‘frozen’.</p><p> </p><p>The United Nations counter-terrorism
sanctions regime was created by UN Security Council Resolution 1267 (1999) and first
imposed sanctions on the Taliban. It has been amended and extended on numerous occasions,
most notably to include Al-Qaida in 2000 (Resolution 1333(2000)), and ISIL (Da’esh)
in 2015 (Resolution 2253(2015)), and is now governed by Resolution 2368 (2017). The
aim of Resolution 2368 (2017) is to apply financial sanctions in order to prevent
terrorists from raising, moving and using funds, and therefore to prevent and suppress
the financing of terrorist acts. The UK is required to comply with its obligations
pursuant to UN Security Council Resolutions as a matter of international law and therefore
to implement all UN sanctions.</p><p> </p><p>Once the conditions for delisting or
unfreezing assets set out in UN Security Council Resolution 2368 of 2017 are met,
relevant assets would no longer be frozen in the UK.</p><p> </p><p>Financial sanctions
legislation does not enable the Government to seize frozen ISIL assets, refuse the
release of frozen assets or use ISIL assets frozen in the UK to provide reparations
for victims of the Daesh atrocities.</p>
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