A British court has sentenced Tarek Namouz, a 43-year-old barber who sent thousands of pounds of public aid from the coronavirus crisis to Islamic State, to 12 years in prison.
Namouz, who ran a barber shop in west London, has been convicted of eight charges, including terrorist financing after he earmarked between November 2020 and May 2021 public grants given to him for the pandemic crisis to fund operations in Syria.
Arrested in May 2021 for these events he was taken to prison to continue serving a ten-year sentence for the rape of an 18-year-old woman in a pub he owned in 2014 until this latest sentence was handed down.
After the sentence was read to him, Namouz has thanked the judge, but not the officers guarding him whom he wished death. «May Allah destroy you,» he said, while he called on them to meet him again on the day of the Last Judgment. «You will end up in hell,» he said.
The police found that he sent at least 12,700 euros, although he himself boasted to an acquaintance who came to visit him in prison that it would be up to 25,000 euros.
The recipient would be a certain Yahya Ahmed Alia, whom he described as a «former Islamic State fighter» who could buy sniper rifles for 2,500 euros. However, before the judge Namouz has denied knowing how these funds were earmarked and said that their purpose was «to help the poor in Syria.»
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
