TERRORIST FINANCE: UK AGREES TO UN DESIGNATION OF

S E C R E T LONDON 000130 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR EEB/ESC/TFS DBENDANA E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/15/2018 TAGS: EFIN KTFN PTER ETTC IZ SY UK SUBJECT: TERRORIST FINANCE: UK AGREES TO UN DESIGNATION OF BADRAN TURKI HISHAN AL MAZIDIH AND MEMBERS OF HIS NETWORK; BUT NEEDS MORE INFO IN ORDER TO CO-SPONSOR REF: A. STATE 170639 ¶B. JOHNSON-BENDANA E-MAILS Classified By: SANDRA CLARK, A/ECON MINISTER FOR REASONS 1.4 B & D ¶1. (S) The UK agrees to support U.S. designation of Badran Turki Hishan Al Mazidih and members of his network, the five individuals in Ref A, according to Giles Cutler, 1267 Committee expert, International Organizations Department, Foreign Office. However, they have not yet decided whether to co-sponsor any of the names, as they have requested from USG more information on Muhammed Turki Hishan Al Mazidih, subject number four (Ref B). The UK believes the U.S. Statement of the Case is not strong enough regarding Muhammed, citing a vague reference to "other tasks" which suggests the designation is based more on family connections rather than network/operational connections. If we are able to provide more information, the UK would likely co-sponsor, Cutler added. ¶2. (S) In addition, Andrew Cummings, Financial Sanctions Unit, HM Treasury expressed concerned that several of the AKAs are too generic and will slow down banks in their review process. They cite: 1) Abu Abdullah, Abu Abdalla; 2) Abu Faysal; 3) Abu Jarrah, Abu Akram. We explained that we understood the difficulty banks would have in reviewing all such common names, but stressed that we do not want to leave any margin of error for missing one of these individuals. We do not believe this issue will affect whether or not the UK agrees to co-sponsor. However, if Washington could review these identifiers to ensure that the generic ones are truly necessary, it would go a long way toward reassuring the UK that we are responsive to their concerns. HMT also plans to contact U.S. Treasury directly to discuss concerns about the generic identifiers. Visit London's Classified Website: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/london/index. cfm LeBaron