https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...S-terrorist-Syria-receiving-Covid-grants.html
A former pub landlord turned barber shop owner sent £25,000 to ISIS fighters in Syria for weapons after claiming thousands of pounds in taxpayer-funded Covid grants, a court heard today.
Tarek Namouz, 43, from West London, had received money from the government to assist his business, Boss Crew Barbers, during the Covid 19 pandemic, and lived in a third-floor flat above the shop.
The former pub landlord is accused of boasting that the terrorists he is accused of funding have ‘incinerators like Hitler’. In WhatsApp messages read to court he also allegedly said: ‘I want to burn Christianity, we have incinerators and holocausts like Hitler, a lesson from history’.
He is accused of sending money on at least seven separate dates between November 2020 and April 2021, which was intended to fund a militia in Syria.
John McGuinness KC, prosecuting, told the jury: ‘At the time you may remember the Covid pandemic was very much ongoing in 2020 and 2021 The defendant was periodically in receipt of Covid grant relief from his local authority, Hammersmith and Fulham.’
When police raided the barber’s shop in Blythe Road, Olympia they found cash and a hidden mobile phone containing messages to a contact in Syria, an ISIS bomb-making video and a video showing how to kill with a knife.
In the months leading up to his arrest, he transferred money using Trust Money Transfers on Edgware Road, sending it to Syria, where he had lived until he was aged 14.
Mr McGuinness told the jury at Kingston Crown Court: ‘He would generally give cash to the bureau which would be converted into Syrian pounds and sent overseas as cash’ where it was received by a man called Yahya Ahmed Alia.
The former pub landlord boasted the terrorists he is accused of funding have ‘incinerators like Hitler’ in a WhatsApp exchange with Mr Alia, the court heard.
He allegedly said ‘I want to burn Christianity, we have incinerators and holocausts like Hitler, a lesson from history’ in an exchange on Arabic the app uncovered on his Samsung phone.
Mr Alia replied ‘Shia, Alawites and Druz’ to which Namouz allegedly said ‘100 per cent’.
The pair also talked up plans to kill non-believers, behead opponents, carry out public executions in the streets and display bodies following an anticipated victory in a battle for control of the country’s capital Damascus, the trial was told.
In one exchange Namouz is said to have written: ‘We will take control of all people by force and by the ruling of Sharia law.
‘Whoever is not happy can get lost/he can leave.
Later in the exchange he refers to ‘striking the necks’ and ‘slaughtering with the knife.’
He then says ‘I swear to Allah we will cause chaos’ and ‘kill the non-believers’.
In the exchanges Mr Alia said ‘Whoever is not happy, a bullet in their head, I don’t want a single person alive who would oppose Sharia’.
Mr Alia also told him ‘we’re in an excellent situation now’ after purchasing Kalashnikovs and a gun to which Namouz is said to have replied ‘great, blessing.’
Officers identified seven transfers between November 2020 and April 2021, for a total of about £11,280.
‘The prosecution say the seven sums set out were not the only money sent out, there was other money sent for which the prosecution does not have any records,’ Mr McGuinness said.
During a bugged conversation in August 2021, with a friend who was visiting him in prison after his arrest, Namouz allegedly said that police knew about some of the transfers but did not know he had transferred more and referred to sending £25,000 to the same man in Syria….
Namouz does not dispute he made the transfers but initially claimed he had sent money out to help those who were ‘poor and needy’ in Syria, the jury was told….
A former pub landlord turned barber shop owner sent £25,000 to ISIS fighters in Syria for weapons after claiming thousands of pounds in taxpayer-funded Covid grants, a court heard today.
Tarek Namouz, 43, from West London, had received money from the government to assist his business, Boss Crew Barbers, during the Covid 19 pandemic, and lived in a third-floor flat above the shop.
The former pub landlord is accused of boasting that the terrorists he is accused of funding have ‘incinerators like Hitler’. In WhatsApp messages read to court he also allegedly said: ‘I want to burn Christianity, we have incinerators and holocausts like Hitler, a lesson from history’.
He is accused of sending money on at least seven separate dates between November 2020 and April 2021, which was intended to fund a militia in Syria.
John McGuinness KC, prosecuting, told the jury: ‘At the time you may remember the Covid pandemic was very much ongoing in 2020 and 2021 The defendant was periodically in receipt of Covid grant relief from his local authority, Hammersmith and Fulham.’
When police raided the barber’s shop in Blythe Road, Olympia they found cash and a hidden mobile phone containing messages to a contact in Syria, an ISIS bomb-making video and a video showing how to kill with a knife.
In the months leading up to his arrest, he transferred money using Trust Money Transfers on Edgware Road, sending it to Syria, where he had lived until he was aged 14.
Mr McGuinness told the jury at Kingston Crown Court: ‘He would generally give cash to the bureau which would be converted into Syrian pounds and sent overseas as cash’ where it was received by a man called Yahya Ahmed Alia.
The former pub landlord boasted the terrorists he is accused of funding have ‘incinerators like Hitler’ in a WhatsApp exchange with Mr Alia, the court heard.
He allegedly said ‘I want to burn Christianity, we have incinerators and holocausts like Hitler, a lesson from history’ in an exchange on Arabic the app uncovered on his Samsung phone.
Mr Alia replied ‘Shia, Alawites and Druz’ to which Namouz allegedly said ‘100 per cent’.
The pair also talked up plans to kill non-believers, behead opponents, carry out public executions in the streets and display bodies following an anticipated victory in a battle for control of the country’s capital Damascus, the trial was told.
In one exchange Namouz is said to have written: ‘We will take control of all people by force and by the ruling of Sharia law.
‘Whoever is not happy can get lost/he can leave.
Later in the exchange he refers to ‘striking the necks’ and ‘slaughtering with the knife.’
He then says ‘I swear to Allah we will cause chaos’ and ‘kill the non-believers’.
In the exchanges Mr Alia said ‘Whoever is not happy, a bullet in their head, I don’t want a single person alive who would oppose Sharia’.
Mr Alia also told him ‘we’re in an excellent situation now’ after purchasing Kalashnikovs and a gun to which Namouz is said to have replied ‘great, blessing.’
Officers identified seven transfers between November 2020 and April 2021, for a total of about £11,280.
‘The prosecution say the seven sums set out were not the only money sent out, there was other money sent for which the prosecution does not have any records,’ Mr McGuinness said.
During a bugged conversation in August 2021, with a friend who was visiting him in prison after his arrest, Namouz allegedly said that police knew about some of the transfers but did not know he had transferred more and referred to sending £25,000 to the same man in Syria….
Namouz does not dispute he made the transfers but initially claimed he had sent money out to help those who were ‘poor and needy’ in Syria, the jury was told….
