Message to Tanya Kazak, Vice President and Compliance Manager, Bank of the West, dated February 15, 2015 and immediately forwarded to Quinn Osborne, Chief Counsel, Bank of the West
Ms. Kazak,
Our legal counsel, Tom Nelson, has finally received the unequivocal statement we have been seeking concerning BNY Mellon locking the return of our funds. Therefore, we are providing the requested information to the best of our ability. We believe that this meets and exceeds the requirements of due diligence under OFAC regulations, which are not even applicable in the case of a cancelled transaction, rendering the BNY Mellon action illegal.
Full Name and Address of Parent Company;
Full Name and Address of Parent Company;
We do not have this information and assume that, like the Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees and other NGOs, there is no parent company, but rather that it is a society supported by charitable donations.
Proof of Registration;
The headquarters are in Palestine and the license number is 8126, registered with the Ministry of the Interior. The Lebanese branch office is licensed with the Lebanese Republic, but we do not have the documentation or reference number.
Ownership Details (full name(s), address, date of birth, nationality/citizenship);
We believe that there are no owners and that it is a society supported by charitable donations.
Detailed purpose of the $3,720 payment;
We already stated at time of transmission that the sole purpose is for blankets and meals for Palestinians made homeless by the Israeli assault on Gaza in 2014.
Confirmation of no association with “Palestinian Relief Fund” in UK to Charitable Association for Palestinian Relief;
We are shocked to learn that there is a terrorist organization registered as a charity by the name of “Palestinian Relief Fund” in the UK. Does the UK government know? In any case, this is the first we have heard of it and have no reason to think that there is any association with the beneficiary of the CANCELLED transaction. Please note that while the national language in the UK and US is English, in Palestine and Lebanon it is Arabic and a more accurate translation of the beneficiary name is “The Charitable Committee in Aid of the Palestinian People”. This bears no significant resemblance to that of the name of the UK organization, nor to any other name on the OFAC list. We cannot speculate on why the English version of the account name in Lebanon is different from the more accurate translation except to note that it may have been the choice of the bank and that such a choice is often not considered important, since Arabic is the primary language.
Full individual details for Hafez al Assad.
Hafez al-Assad was President of Syria from 1971 until he died in 2000. For more information go to his extensive Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafez_al-Assad. It is also the name of the highway which is part of the address for the Charitable Association for Palestinian Relief.
These questions are not well thought out. Some of the answers were given at the time the transaction was initiated, and others are the product of simple reflection or more careful reading of the original transaction. This is why we think that the request is not made in good faith and with no intention to act responsibly.
I reiterate, however, that we will take all necessary action to recover our funds, and to seek damages for improper withholding of our funds, which is potential grounds for a charge of larceny.
Paul Larudee, Treasurer
Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees