A Hamas leader accused of running the terror group’s operations in the West Bank has been holed up in a government-funded house in a London district with the highest Jewish population in Britain, according to reports on Sunday.
Muhammad Qassem Sawalha was recently given a £112,300 (about $136,500) discount on a £320,700 (nearly $390,000) two-storey house with a garden and garage located less than 10 minutes from two synagogues in Barnet in the UK capital, reported the Sunday Times.
The 62-year-old refugee fled to the UK in the 1990s using a relative’s passport and later claimed British citizenship, the newspaper reported.
While living in the UK, Sawalha was still allegedly able to continue his work for Hamas remotely and would hold secret meetings about “reviving” terrorist activities in Israel, according to the Times.
He also helped the terrorist organization launder money, according to a 2004 US Department of Justice indictment.
Muhammad Qassem Sawalha was recently given a £112,300 (about $136,500) discount on a £320,700 (nearly $390,000) two-storey house in the Barnet area of London. Getty Images
Sawalha and his wife Sawsan, 56, used the Right to Buy Britain scheme to buy their house in June 2021 – getting a price cut on its market value of just £500 (about $607) less than the maximum discount available during the fiscal year, the report said. that.
The district of Barnet in which the house is located has the highest Jewish population in the whole of Britain. Some 56,616 Jews live there, about a fifth of the Jewish population in the whole of the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The county’s leader, Barry Rawlings, told The Times he was “horrified to think [Sawalha] can live in our midst” and said he had launched a review.
“We will liaise with other stakeholders including the police and the government in reviewing the full history of this case and will take all appropriate action,” he said.
“This has come at a time when local communities are in dire need of reassurance following the escalating conflict in the Middle East, and we have a responsibility as a council to ensure we can provide that reassurance.”
Hamas leaders moved to the London borough with the highest Jewish population in the UK. rabbit75_fot – stock.adobe.com
In 2009, Sawalha signed a scathing declaration praising Allah for having “dispelled the Zionist Jews,” and called for arms to be sent to Gaza while demanding a “Third Jihad Front” be opened in the West Bank alongside Iraq and Afghanistan.
Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs published a report in 2019 that claimed Sawalha was a “Hamas representative in the UK” but that while in the Hamas politburo between 2013 and 2017, he “supervised [its] foreign relations.”
The military wing of Hamas was declared a terrorist organization by the UK in 2001.
A similar distinction for the group’s political wing was not granted until much later, in 2021, when the UK classified Hamas as a terrorist organization in its entirety and said any distinction between its various branches was “artificial.”
Muhammad Qassem Sawalha reportedly runs Hamas operations in the West Bank from London. Getty Images
Lawyers for Israel in the UK reported Sawalha’s background in 2020 to the counter-terrorism police.
An investigation has now been launched into whether his rental breached the ban, The Times reported.
When contacted by The Times, Sawalha’s lawyer said the newspaper’s approach contained “a number of serious false allegations,” and that “Mr. Sawalha is a law-abiding British citizen.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
