CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

Lead Ed­i­tor News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment has re­leased the names of more than two dozen in­di­vid­u­als fol­low­ing its re­cent black­list­ing of three in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions as ter­ror­ist groups.

In a gazetted or­der pub­lished in the me­dia to­day, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al al­so or­dered the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit to im­me­di­ate­ly cir­cu­late the list of names to fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and list­ed busi­ness­es in keep­ing with the crack­down.

Fol­low­ing two High Court rul­ings un­der the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act, the Supreme Court has di­rect­ed that copies of the or­ders be served on the FIU with­out de­lay, en­sur­ing en­force­ment of up­dat­ed an­ti-ter­ror­ism list­ings across the fi­nan­cial sys­tem.

The di­rec­tions were is­sued on April 16, 2026, in cham­bers in two sep­a­rate mat­ters be­fore Jus­tice Mar­garet Y Mo­hammed and Jus­tice Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar.

In both cas­es, the court or­dered that up­dat­ed list­ings be re­flect­ed in the FIU’s con­sol­i­dat­ed reg­is­ter and dis­trib­uted to banks and oth­er reg­u­lat­ed en­ti­ties re­quired to mon­i­tor trans­ac­tions against des­ig­nat­ed lists.

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al was al­so di­rect­ed to pub­lish no­tice of the or­ders in the T&T Gazette and in two dai­ly news­pa­pers of gen­er­al cir­cu­la­tion. Both mat­ters re­main sub­ject to statu­to­ry re­view every six months un­der the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act.

The rul­ings come days af­ter the State of­fi­cial­ly des­ig­nat­ed three ma­jor Mid­dle East­ern para­mil­i­tary and po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions as ter­ror­ist en­ti­ties, trig­ger­ing an im­me­di­ate freeze on any T&T as­sets linked to the groups.

In a sig­nif­i­cant na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty de­vel­op­ment, the High Court or­dered the freez­ing of all lo­cal prop­er­ty as­so­ci­at­ed with Hezbol­lah, Hamas and the Is­lam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps (IRGC) un­der pro­vi­sions of the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act.

The or­ders, pub­lished in the T&T Gazette on April 13, rep­re­sent one of the most far-reach­ing ap­pli­ca­tions of the leg­is­la­tion in re­cent years.

The de­c­la­ra­tions were is­sued by High Court judges be­tween April 8 and 9 and re­quire on­go­ing six-month re­views by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, un­der­scor­ing con­tin­ued ju­di­cial and ex­ec­u­tive over­sight of the list­ings.

In the first mat­ter, CV2018-04593, Jus­tice Mar­garet Y Mo­hammed dealt with an ap­pli­ca­tion con­cern­ing 27 in­di­vid­u­als list­ed un­der the Act, each iden­ti­fied by mul­ti­ple alias­es.

The court var­ied a 2018 or­der by up­dat­ing iden­ti­fy­ing in­for­ma­tion for Khalil Ahmed Haqqani, who re­mains a list­ed en­ti­ty un­der the Act. The amend­ed en­try in­cludes a place of birth in Pak­tia Province, Afghanistan, and ad­dress­es across Afghanistan and Pak­istan.

The court al­so dis­pensed with per­son­al ser­vice on one de­fen­dant.

In the sec­ond mat­ter, CV2018-04597, Jus­tice Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar grant­ed an ap­pli­ca­tion to vary a 2018 or­der in­volv­ing four list­ed en­ti­ties linked to mon­ey ex­change and fi­nan­cial trans­fer op­er­a­tions.

The court up­dat­ed and ex­pand­ed iden­ti­fy­ing de­tails for Ha­ji Khair­ul­lah Ha­ji Sat­tar Mon­ey Ex­change, in­clud­ing mul­ti­ple alias­es, branch lo­ca­tions across Pak­istan, Afghanistan, the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates and Iran, and reg­u­la­to­ry iden­ti­fiers.

The re­main­ing list­ed en­ti­ties in­clude Roshan Mon­ey Ex­change, Ra­hat Ltd, and Ha­ji Basir and Zar­jmil Com­pa­ny Hawala, all of which re­main sub­ject to des­ig­na­tion un­der the Act.

As in the first mat­ter, the court reaf­firmed that the FIU must im­me­di­ate­ly up­date and cir­cu­late the con­sol­i­dat­ed list to fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and rel­e­vant busi­ness­es to en­sure com­pli­ance with an­ti-ter­ror­ism fi­nanc­ing con­trols.

The pro­ce­dure, which freezes the lo­cal as­sets of a per­son deemed a ter­ror­ist, has been used in the past for in­ter­na­tion­al ter­ror­ists iden­ti­fied on the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil sanc­tions list.

It was mere­ly a for­mal­i­ty as the AG’s Of­fice did not iden­ti­fy any lo­cal as­sets be­long­ing to those named.

While there was no in­di­ca­tion of the des­ig­nat­ed per­sons’ links to T&T, the pro­ce­dure al­lows the State to freeze their as­sets if they are ever found in the coun­try.

In­di­vid­u­als list­ed in CV2018-04593

Fa­zl Mo­ham­mad

Ab­dul-Haq

Nu­rul­lah

Khair­ul­lah

Hamidul­lah

Ab­dul Gha­far

Ab­dul Qud­dus

Sir­a­jud­din

Amir

Nasirud­din

Gul

Saleh

Khalil Ahmed Haqqani

Aizul­lah

Ma­lik

Bakht Gul

Ab­dul Sa­tar

Khair­ul­lah Barakzai

Mo­hammed Qasim

Ahmed Shah

Adam Khan

Qari Sai­ful­lah

Yahya

Muham­mad Omar Zad­ran

Rah­mat­ul­lah

Ab­dul Basir

Torek Agha