Africa’s
largest mobile operator MTN says it is reviewing allegations that it paid
protection money to militant Islamist groups in Afghanistan.
The
allegations, made in a legal complaint filed in a U.S. federal court recently,
say the firm violated U.S. anti-terrorism laws.
It
was filed on behalf of families of U.S. 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 expensive security for their transmission towers.
The
alleged payments helped finance a Taliban-led insurgency that led to the
attacks in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2017, the accusations say.
It
is alleged that the money helped to provide “material support to known
terrorist organisations,” thus violating the anti-terrorism legislation.
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.
