Dick Marty, Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly rapporteur, will present tomorrow what is expected to be a damning report on the United Nations Security Council and European Union blacklists of groups and individuals linked to terrorism. One example of particular interest to Malta is to be presented as a quintessential case study.

The case in question pertains to that of Youssef Nada, a Muslim businessman who had been slapped with a UN-imposed travel ban and asset freeze after being accused of funding the 9/11 terrorist attacks by sending money for the attacks through Malta.

Mr Nada claims that he had been unfairly blacklisted and barred from leaving Swiss territory for four years, while Swiss prosecutors failed to find evidence of any wrongdoing. Charges were consequently dropped for lack of evidence.

Tomorrow, Mr Nada, an Italian national of Egyptian origin, will give video testimony of his experience and how he had been wrongly accused of funding the most prominent terrorist attack in history.

Seventy-eight-year-old Mr Nada is the founder of Nada Management, formerly known as al-Taqwa. He was investigated by the Swiss authorities shortly after the 9/11 attacks following accusations from the US government that he had, through al-Taqwa, helped fund the al-Qaeda, and other, terrorist networks.

In his introductory memorandum to tomorrow’s report, Mr Marty describes the case as one from a Kafka novel that illustrates “the dangerous ongoing erosion of the fundamental rights and freedoms, even within the instances mandated to protect and promote them”.

US officials had accused Mr Nada of sending money to al-Qaeda through Malta and Switzerland to bank branches in the Bahamas. Switzerland was forced to drop the case against top officials of the company on 1 July 2005 because, they said, authorities in the Bahamas had failed to provide essential bank records by a court deadline.

Swiss authorities had blocked the accounts of the company and the personal accounts of board members, while neighbouring Liechtenstein froze the accounts of an affiliate firm, a fiduciary company by the name of Asat Trust.

But the Swiss prosecutor’s office never filed charges or made arrests. Company officials have repeatedly denied links to terrorism and accused Swiss authorities of taking part in a US-led anti-Muslim campaign.

Although the prosecutor’s office unfroze the bank accounts of the company and its officers, they remain frozen because of UN sanctions targeting those on the US list.

A 2002 communiqué to the Swiss authorities from the US Treasury Department claimed Mr Nada had set up a special line of credit for al-Qaeda and Hamas functionaries to finance terrorist attacks. The statement specified that the al-Taqwa, or ‘Fear of God’, bank had used secret accounts, convoluted real estate transactions, and other financial methods of obscuring the flow of money to funnel cash directly to organisations that would use the funds for terrorist attacks.

It added that such funds allegedly flowed from Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to al Taqwa offices in Lugano, Switzerland and Malta, where the bank provided “indirect investment services for Al Qaeda, investing funds for bin Laden, and making cash deliveries on request to the Al Qaeda organization.”

The US authorities added, “Terrorist use of online banking services is facilitated in part by banks that have terrorist ties. For instance, al-Taqwa Bank, founded by the Muslim Brotherhood in the Bahamas in 1988, maintained branches in Algeria, Liechtenstein, Italy, Malta, Panama, and Switzerland, and provided banking services to al-Qaeda and Hamas until it was shut down by sanctions in the wake of 11 September 2001.”

US district court documents also state, “Defendants Al Taqwa and Nada Management Organisation are banks who had their origin in the late 1980s, during which time the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood formed financial management firms and banks called ‘Al Taqwa’, that were dedicated to the overthrow of Western nations, and the creation of a worldwide Islamic government.

“Headquartered in Lugano, Switzerland, with branches in Italy, Algeria, Liechtenstein, Malta, Panama and the Bahamas, they consist of the Al Taqwa Bank, Al Taqwa Management Organisation SA, Al Taqwa Trade, Property and Industry Ltd, and The Asat Trust.

“Upon information and belief, the Al Taqwa Defendants have financed and laundered money for Arab and Islamic political and militant groups including the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and the Egyptian Gala’a al-Islamiya, Islamic terrorist groups with links to Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organisation.

“Additionally, international investigations indicate that Al-Taqwa facilitated the movement of Bin Laden’s money around the world in the late 1990s, a task made easier because its complex structure was designed to prevent scrutiny of its operations.”