British bank accused of helping to fund terrorists

Standard Chartered avoided prosecution for money laundering and carried out billions of dollars of transactions for funders of terrorist groups, US court papers have alleged.

The BBC reported that the bank avoided prosecution by the US Department of Justice after Lord Cameron’s government intervened on its behalf in 2012.

Recent documents filed to a New York court claim thousands of transactions worth more than $100 billion were carried out by the bank from 2008 to 2013 in breach of sanctions against Iran.

In September 2012, however, George Osborne, then chancellor in Lord Cameron’s government, secretly intervened on the bank’s behalf.

The US Department of Justice decided not to prosecute the bank only three months later.

The foreign exchange transactions identified in the court filings were yet to come to light and it is not suggested that Osborne or Lord Cameron had any knowledge of these transactions at the time.

The bank has twice admitted breaching sanctions against Iran and other countries paying fines totalling more than $1.7 billion, but has not admitted conducting transactions for “terrorist” organisations.