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Barber shop owner sent COVID grant money to Islamic State fighters, court hears | UK News



A barber shop owner has sent £25,000 to Islamic State (IS) fighters in Syria after receiving thousands of pounds in COVID funding, a court has heard.

Tarek Namouz, 43, from west London, has received money from the government to support his business, Boss Crew Barbers, during the coronavirus pandemic, and lives in an apartment on the third floor above the store.

He was charged with sending money on at least seven separate days between November 2020 and April 2021, with the aim of funding militias in Syria, Kingston Crown Court heard.

When police raided the barber shop on Blythe Street, Olympia, prosecutors said they found cash and a concealed cell phone containing a text message for a contact in Syria, a fabricated video ISIS bombs and a video on how to kill people with knives.

In the months before his arrest, he is said to have transferred money using Trust Money Transfers on Edgware Road, to Syria, where he lived until the age of 14.

John McGuinness KC, the prosecutor, told the jury he would give cash to the office to convert into Syrian pounds and send it abroad to a man named Yahya Ahmed Alia.

Officials have identified seven transfers between November 2020 and April 2021, totaling around £11,280.

Mr McGuinness said: “The prosecution said that the seven sums mentioned were not the only money sent, there were others sent out for which the prosecution did not have any records.

In an overheard conversation in August 2021 with a friend who visited him in prison after his arrest, Namouz allegedly said that police were aware of some of the transfers but did not know he had transferred them. more and mentioned sending £25,000 to the same man in Syria. .

A secret phone containing IS propaganda content

When Namouz’s barber shop was raided by police on May 25 last year, a Samsung Galaxy 10 mobile phone was found underneath the bottom drawer, the court heard.

Over the phone, officials found encrypted Whatsapp messages showing that Namouz and Alia were “both committed to the Islamic State’s radical Islamic culture and the reason he was sending money to Ahmed was to terrorists, to continue terrorism in Syria,” McGuinness said.

Mr McGuinness said the messages included mentions of parcels of land and using the money to buy a building or construct a building that would be used to sell food as well as for “terrorist purposes”.

He added: “There has been “talk about the occupants of the building, which prosecutors say are Islamic State fighters and possessing weapons.”

The court heard the phone also had an encrypted Telegram app that was used to receive IS propaganda and instruction materials, including a video showing how to make explosives and another of a ISIS fighters demonstrate knife assassination techniques.

WhatsApp about slapping the necks of infidels

Namouz did not object to him making the transfer but initially stated that he sent the money to help “poor and needy” people in Syria, the jury was told.

On the concealed phone, police discovered a series of WhatsApp messages between Namouz and his Syrian contact in which he talked about hitting infidels on the necks and causing chaos, the court said.

On May 15, he received a message from Alia saying they had three Kalashnikov assault rifles and another, adding: “We’re in a great situation right now. “

In a message on May 21, Namouz said: “Be calm and patient, we will control everyone by force and according to the judgment of shariah law and anyone who is not satisfied can Lost.”

Alia replied: “Who is not happy – a bullet in their head.”

“Hit the neck,” Namouz said. “Knife carnage. I swear to Allah, we will cause chaos.”

The trial continues.

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