(Seychelles News Agency) - Seychelles will set up a register of extradition cases occurring in the island nation after the National Assembly approved a bill presented by the Minister of Finance on Tuesday.

Naadir Hassan told members of the National Assembly that the proposed Extradition Amendment Bill, 2021, will address deficiencies identified in the mutual evaluation report published in 2018 by the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG).

The report, which assessed Seychelles' compliance to 40 recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), rated the country to be compliant in 20 areas, partially compliant in 16 and non-compliant in four. Seychelles initially submitted a request for re-rating of 12 recommendations to which the country was deemed partially compliant.

Recommendation 39 in the report relates to extradition, in which Seychelles was rated partially compliant due to the fact that terrorism financing is not an extraditable offence and there was no proper case management system for handling extradition cases.

Extradition from and to Seychelles is regulated by the Extradition Act (1991), which includes offences established under international conventions or agreements to which the requesting State and Seychelles are parties as extraditable offences. However, these offences still need to be criminalised in domestic legislation in the island nation in the western Indian Ocean. 

In the amendment to the Extradition Act, Hassan said that "it is also being proposed that a definition for the term financing terrorism activity is included. The term will adopt the same definition that is found in the law for anti-money laundering and financing of terrorism activity."

In line with procedures established by FATF, the deficiencies must be addressed within three years and Hassan said that "this means that we need to amend the bill to submit to ESAAMLG as soon as possible."