Ex-Karachi cop among 11 sanctioned by UK

LONDON:

Britain said on Thursday it was imposing sanctions on 11 individuals, including a former Karachi police “encounter specialist” Anwar Ahmed Khan, as it widened travel bans and economic sanctions for human rights abuses worldwide in a coordinated move with the United States.

The latest additions raise the number to 65 people on the UK sanctions list, along with three organisations. In Pakistan, Anwar Ahmed Khan is suspected of being behind more than 190 “hits” that led to more than 400 deaths, it was stated.

“The UK and our allies are shining a light on the severe and systematic human rights violations perpetrated by those sanctioned today,” UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a statement. “Today’s sanctions send a clear message to human rights violators that the UK will hold them to account,” Raab added.

Other names include former president of The Gambia Yahya Jammeh, whose election defeat to Adama Barrow in December 2016 forced him to flee. Jammeh, his wife Zineb, and the former director general of the country’s National Intelligence Agency Yankuba Badjie, are all now subject to asset freezes and a UK travel ban.

Three members of the Venezuelan military, and the speaker of the parliament of the Russian region of Chechnya as well as the region’s Terek Special Rapid Response Unit also sanctioned.

Britain, which left the European Union in January, introduced its own sanctions regime in July, identifying 49 “notorious” individuals and organisations accused of human rights abuses.

The government is coming under pressure to impose similar sanctions on Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam over abuses by police against pro-democracy protesters.