Bahrain minister held for money laundering

Manama: A Bahraini minister has been arrested on charges of money laundering, making him the first minister to be detained since Bahrain's independence in 1971.

The minister, who was not named but referred to as "an official" in an interior ministry statement, was arrested on Thursday evening following months of investigations and close monitoring.

The alleged money laundering operations exceeded 12 million Bahraini dinars (Dh116.3 million), according to sources close to the investigation.

Al Waqt daily said National Security Agency officials on Thursday accompanied the minister from his home to his office where agents conducted a search and called in his aides for further investigations.

Under watch

The minister, quizzed by the agency and the interior ministry's anti-economic crime unit, faces charges of carrying out money laundering operations in the country and abroad.

Bahrainis learned from the country's various online forums that the man was State Minister Mansour Bin Rajab.

Brigadier Rashid Bu Hamoud, the ministry's assistant undersecretary for legal affairs, said the authorities first noticed the suspicious activities early last year and continued to monitor the suspect's activities, meetings and communications with his aides and with the contacts abroad.

Bahrain in 2001 became the first Gulf country to issue a law that laid down the "legal principles and framework to ensure the disclosure of any suspicious financial activity".

Manama is the seat of the Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force which tackles the threat posed by money laundering and terrorist financing to countries in the Middle East and North Africa region.