TBILISI, DFWatch – Georgia is to build its own list of known terrorists, and seize the property of persons designated as terrorists by the UN.

Specifically the bill will amend the law on Anti Money Laundering Support. Initiators are MPs Andro Alavidze and Kakhaber Anjaparidze.

If passed, the bill will establish a new commission which will make it possible to seize the property of persons defined by UN resolutions as terrorists, so that these persons won’t be able to finance terrorism or other illegal activities.

The commission will work closely with foreign countries and international organizations, including the UN.

A chairman will head the commission, and other members will be selected by the government.

Another thing the commission will do is to petition the courts to seize the property of those persons as defined by UN resolutions.

This new anti-terrrism commission will also be authorized to work on and establish a list of people connected with terrorism. The commission will be able to apply to the courts with a petition to seize or free from seizure these peoples’ property, after going through the right administrative procedures.

In order to implement sanctions defined by UN resolutions the commission will be authorized to appeal to appropriate state bodies to impose certain restrictions. It will then be obligatory for the state body to carry out what the commission ask them to do.

Parliament has not yet begun to review the bill, so the ruling party is not commenting on the issue. But Pavle Kublashvili, chairman of parliament’s Judiciary Committee states that work on this issue is still in progress. Certain issues are defined and he says the party  won’t comment until the issue is finally decided on.

But others are more skeptical.

“Initiating the bill means that this issue is more or less settled. Claiming that it is still in developmentment, before a review is just about to begin, raises a number of questions,” Zakaria Kutsnashvili, chairmen of the Law for People NGO claims.

Kutsnashvili wonders what kind of control will be in place as a corrective to what this new anti-terrorism commission will be doing.

“UN resolutions have their own classification, and accordingly, we should know what we are talking about. Only after that will we be able to discuss the pros and cons of these amendments,” he says.