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Saudi
officials
block
child
marriages
RIYADH: Marriage officials
in Saudi Arabia have refused
to marry three 13-year-old
girls, amid an outcry by rights
activists over child marriages,
Al-Watan newspaper reported
on Saturday. Last week
marriage officials told the
parents of three girls that
they were too young, cit-
ing a recent instruction by
the head of the Dammam
regional courts, Sheikh
Abdulrahman al-Raqib,
Watan reported.
When the father of one
then sought permission
from Raqib, he was told to
wait until she was 15.
Saudi Arabia has no law
setting a minimum age for
marriage for either gender,
leading to occasional cases
in which girls are married
off by their parents before
reaching their teens, some
even younger than age 10.
Saudi human rights activ-
ists have sought to have a
law banning the practice of
child marriage and setting a
minimum age of 18, but some
powerful religious officials
have resisted.
In January, the grand mufti,
Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, said girls
as young as 10 may be married,
and he lashed out at critics.
“If a girl exceeds ten or
twelve then she is eligible for
marriage, and whoever thinks
she is too young, then he or
she is wrong and has done her
an injustice,” he said.
Lives of women in the
ultra-conservative kingdom
are governed by a set of strict
rules that require them to be
covered from head to toe and
ban them from driving. They
are also not allowed to travel
or obtain identity documents
without the permission of their
male guardian. – AFP
The Stanford Files: FBI’s first
probe was 20 years ago
SAMBA TIME...
A woman from the Grupo
Especial Tom Maior
samba school dances in
a parade at the Anhembi
Sambodromo in Sao Paulo,
Brazil. Billed as the biggest
show on earth, the carnival
runs until Tuesday.
EPAPIX
NEW YORK: Revelations pile the pressure on the England
and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) over its controversial
£50m (RM263 million) deal with Sir Allen Stanford (pix)
disgraced tycoon. More than 20 years ago,
the authorities repeatedly probed Stan-
ford’s alleged links to some of the world’s
biggest and most powerful drug lords.
Despite no fewer than five investigations
into suspected drug money laundering
by law enforcers ranging from Scotland
Yard to the FBI, no charges were ever
brought.
As banking officials in Central and
South America and in the Caribbean
moved quickly to freeze accounts
linked to Stanford, the full extent of
suspicions surrounding his business
dealings emerged. Last night ECB
was under growing pressure over its
decision to enter into a £50m deal
for Stanford’s businesses to sponsor
Twenty20 tournaments. The ECB
refused to say what detailed steps it
took to find out whom it was dealing
with before agreeing the deal.
The 58-year-old businessman,
whose personal fortune was esti-
mated at US$2.2 billion (RM8 billion)
last year, headed a global financial
group which claimed to have US$51
billion (RM188 billion) worth of as-
sets under management. But he is
now under investigation by a range
of US criminal and regulatory
authorities, including the FBI, the
Securities and Exchange Commis-
sion (SEC), the Internal Revenue
Service (IRS) and state financial
regulators.
The SEC investigation which
resulted in civil charges being
brought against Stanford and two
other employees last week, be-
gan as long ago as 2006 but was
hampered by the reluctance of
the authorities in Antigua, where
Stanford’s offshore banking op-
eration is based, to co-operate,
according to sources familiar
with the investigation. The SEC
said this meant it was forced
to call in the FBI, which has
greater investigative powers,
| MONDAY FEBRUARY 23 2009
including the power to use wiretaps. Stanford was al-
ready well known to the FBI. He was first investigated 20
years ago when he became a subject of a joint Scotland
Yard-FBI investigation into so-called “brass-plate” banks
on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. The investigation
was set up after the tiny island, with a population of fewer
than 13,000 people, had been targeted by criminals who
set up more than 300 banks and rapidly found itself at the
centre of a worldwide money laundering operation.
Among them was the Guardian International Bank,
created by Allen Stanford. The bank was suspected of
laundering drug money from the notorious Medellin and
Cali drug cartels run by Pablo Escobar and the Orejuela
brothers, according to former FBI agent Ross Gaffney,
who headed the task force set
up to investigate the suspicious
explosion of offshore banks on
the island.
“We suspected that Stanford’s
bank was involved in money
laundering, especially as we put
people outside it to observe it,”
Gaffney said. Before the inves-
tigation could develop further,
Stanford suddenly voluntarily
surrendered his Montserrat bank-
ing licence and left the island.
Gaffney said Scotland Yard
had to abandon its Stanford in-
vestigation because it didn’t have sufficient manpower to
pursue him. The Yard’s inquiry was headed by Detective
Superintendent Richard Marston, who has since died.
“Dick Marston was frustrated because he didn’t have the
manpower to do more. I think in the end the Brits were
just relieved to get rid of this problem from Montserrat,”
Gaffney said.
After Montserrat, Stanford switched his attention
to neighbouring Antigua where he set up the Stanford
International Bank, which is at the centre of the current
investigation. Gaffney said the FBI continued to take
an interest in Stanford and set up a second inquiry into
that bank after receiving intelligence that it continued to
launder money for the Medellin and Cali cartels. “We
had hard intelligence about what he was doing and we
began to develop it,” Gaffney said.
The FBI was particularly interested in Stanford’s
relationship with Lester Bird, Antigua’s former prime
minister. “Stanford is a very shrewd businessman. He
always took the trouble to build close relations with local
people on the islands. When Hurricane Hugo threatened,
he flew a lot of his people out of the island to safety. He is
affable and has a lot of charm. As a result, he has built up
a lot of goodwill and loyalty to him.” – The Independent