A leader of one of Britain’s most prominent mosques is a ruling member of Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organisation.
Mohammed Sawalha, a trustee of the Finsbury Park Mosque in north London, has been appointed a member of the political bureau of Hamas.
His role was revealed when it was announced that he was part of a Hamas delegation to Moscow in September which held a meeting with Mikhail Bogdanov, President Putin’s Middle East envoy, and a deputy foreign minister.
Hamas has been designated an outlawed terrorist organisation by the US and the EU, meaning that its assets can be seized and its members jailed. The UK has banned only its military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, meaning that Mr Sawalha has committed no offence.
Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, last week urged the group to “renounce terror”, recognise the state of Israel and “stop spewing out antisemitic propaganda”.
Mr Sawalha, 56, arrived in Britain as a refugee in the early 1990s. He lives with his family in a £500,000 council house in Kingsbury, northwest London. The Sunday Times reported in 2008 that he had been named in US court documents as having previously been “in charge of Hamas terrorist operations in the West Bank” and had met two men accused of laundering millions of dollars to finance the group.
Mr Sawalha was a director for nine years of the Islam Expo, which promoted Islamic lifestyles, is a former president of the British Muslim Initiative, a former director of the Muslim Association of Britain and has organised aid convoys to Gaza. He was appointed a trustee of the Finsbury Park Mosque in 2010, making him legally responsible for overseeing its management.
Jeremy Corbyn is a regular guest at the mosque, which is in his constituency. Last month the Labour leader attended a meeting on “Hate Crime Against Muslim Women” that was also attended by local police officers.
The mosque was at the centre of community support after an alleged racist attack in June by a van driver who ploughed into a group of worshippers outside a nearby Islamic centre, killing one person. The driver is awaiting trial.
The mosque had been the base for Abu Hamza, who is serving a life sentence for terrorism offences in the US, but the new management has sought to shed its links to extremism.
The mosque said in statement that it is a “British charity and has no relationship with Hamas”. Mr Sawalha could not be contacted for comment.
The Palestinian exile’s key role with Hamas will lead to further questions about the organisation’s relationship with the British government, which Mr Johnson was questioned about last week by the Commons foreign affairs committee. He refused to confirm that there were negotiations, saying: “I wouldn’t want to exclude the possibility of our talking to Hamas.”
Hamas was founded for armed struggle against Israel and to deliver social welfare. Supporters say it is a legitimate resistance movement. Detractors call it a terrorist organisation whose charter commits it to Israel’s destruction. Hamas has, however, softened its language on Israel in recent years.
Behind the story
The status of Hamas as a terrorist organisation is not clear cut. While the group is banned in much of the West, in other parts of the world it is considered a legitimate political organisation (David Brown writes).
The European Court of Justice ruled in July that Hamas should remain on the European Union’s terrorist blacklist, which maintains an asset freeze and travel ban. Hamas’s military wing was added to the blacklist in 2001 before it was extended to the whole organisation in 2003. Mohammed Sawalha is not included on the list of individuals covered by the EU ban.
The UK has proscribed only Hamas’s military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, so there is no restriction on its political activity. Australia and New Zealand have the same rules.
The US designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist organisation in 1997. Canada has also listed Hamas as a “terrorist entity”.