A Hamas leader who allegedly ran the terrorist group’s operations in the West Bank has been hiding in a state-funded house in a London district that has the largest Jewish population in all of Britain, according to a report on Sunday.
Muhammad Qassem Sawalha recently received a £112,300 (about $136,500) discount on a £320,700 (almost $390,000) two-story house with a garden and garage located less than 10 minutes from two synagogues in Barnet, the UK capital , reported the Sunday Times. .
The 62-year-old fugitive fled to the United Kingdom in the 1990s using a relative’s passport and later claimed British citizenship, the newspaper reported.
While living in the United Kingdom, Sawalha was supposedly still able to continue his work for Hamas remotely and would hold secret meetings about “revitalizing” terrorist acts in Israel, according to the Times.
He also helped the terrorist organization launder money, according to a 2004 U.S. Department of Justice indictment.
Muhammad Qassem Sawalha recently received a £112,300 (about $136,500) discount on a £320,700 (almost $390,000) two-story home in the London borough of Barnet. fake images
Sawalha and his wife Sawsan, 56, used Britain’s Right to Buy scheme to buy their house at a discounted price in June 2021, taking a cut on its market value of just £500 (about $607). less than the maximum discount available during the fiscal year. year, according to the report.
The district of Barnet where the house is located has the highest Jewish population in all of Britain. About 56,616 Jews live there, about a fifth of the Jewish population of the entire United Kingdom, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Borough leader Barry Rawlings told the Times he was “horrified to think [Sawalha] could be living among us” and said he had launched a review.
“We will be in touch with other interested parties, including the police and the government, to review the full history of this case and will take all appropriate measures,” he said.
“This has come at a time when local communities desperately need reassurance following the escalation of conflict in the Middle East, and we have a responsibility as a council to ensure we can provide that reassurance.”
The Hamas leader moved to the London borough with the largest Jewish population in the United Kingdom. rabbit75_fot – stock.adobe.com
In 2009, Sawalha signed an infamous statement praising Allah for having “defeated the Zionist Jews” and calling for weapons to be sent to Gaza, while demanding that a “Third Jihadist Front” be opened in the West Bank alongside Iraq and Afghanistan. .
Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs published a report in 2019 stating that Sawalha was the “Hamas representative in the United Kingdom,” but that while he was on the Hamas politburo between 2013 and 2017, he was “in charge of [its] “Foreign relations.”
The military wing of Hamas was declared a terrorist organization by the United Kingdom in 2001.
The same distinction for the group’s political wing was not granted until much later, in 2021, when the United Kingdom classified Hamas as a terrorist organization in its entirety and said that any distinction between its various branches was “artificial.”
Muhammad Qassem Sawalha reportedly ran Hamas operations in the West Bank from London. fake images
Israel’s lawyers in the United Kingdom reported Sawalha’s background in 2020 to counterterrorism police.
An investigation has now been launched to determine whether his tenancy violated the sanctions, The Times reported.
When contacted by The Times, Sawalha’s lawyers said the newspaper’s approach contained a “series of serious false allegations” and that “Mr Sawalha is a law-abiding British citizen.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn