MONITORING (SW) – Africa's largest mobile operator MTN says it is reviewing allegations that it paid protection money to militant Islamist groups in Afghanistan, the BBC reported.
The allegations, made in a legal complaint filed in a US federal court on Friday, say the firm violated US anti-terrorism laws. It was filed on behalf of families of US citizens killed in attacks in Afghanistan. Five other companies were also named in the filing.
The complaint alleges MTN paid bribes to al-Qaida and the Taliban to avoid having to invest in in expensive security for their transmission towers. It is alleged that the money helped to provide "material support to known terrorist organisations," thus violating the anti-terrorism legislation.
According to the report, the South African telecommunications giant says it remains of the view that it conducts its business in a "responsible and compliant manner in all its territories".
MTN is Africa's largest mobile operator and the eighth largest in the world, with more than 240 million subscribers.
In 2015, the firm was fined more than $5bn (£3.8bn) by the Nigerian authorities for failing to cut off unregistered sim cards – a figure that was reduced to $1.7bn after a long legal dispute and the intervention of South Africa's then President Jacob Zuma.
In February, a former South African ambassador to Iran was arrested in the capital, Pretoria, on charges that he took a bribe to help MTN win a $31.6bn (£24bn) license to operate in Iran
The main allegation is that the defendants — who were all large companies with “lucrative” businesses in post-9/11 Afghanistan — paid the Taliban to refrain from attacking their business interests. That money “aided and abetted terrorism by directly funding [an] al-Qaeda-backed Taliban insurgency that killed and injured thousands of Americans”.
After entering the Afghan market through acquisition in 2006, MTN became the country’s largest provider of cellular phone services.
The lawsuit claims that MTN has made protection payments to the Taliban from 2006, resulting in payments potentially amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. This, it is claimed, became a major source of funding for the Taliban.
Protection money was often paid in two forms: by disbursing money to Taliban commanders in dangerous districts; and/or cash passed to local tribe elders to protect cell tower sites, money which would eventually end up in the hands of the Taliban.
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