Rapist who used Covid loans to fund Isis is found guilty of providing money for terrorism

A convicted rapist who was radicalised in jail funnelled greater than £18,000 of taxpayers’ money to Islamic State in his Syria homeland.

Tarek Namouz, 43, claimed Covid loans from Hammersmith and Fulham Council for his west London barbershop however despatched the cash to a terrorist good friend.

Namouz got here to Britain as a pupil and claimed asylum in 1996 to keep away from army service. In 2014, whereas landlord of a pub in Finsbury Park, north London, he raped an 18-year-old lady.

He served half a ten-year jail sentence, Kingston Crown Court docket heard. On early launch, he opened Boss Crew Barbers in Olympia.

Namouz was sentenced to 10 years in 2014 for raping an 18-year-old lady. He opened a barbershop on his launch from jail

Namouz had claimed the cash from Hammersmith and Fulham Council and despatched it to a schoolfriend combating with Isis

He claimed the council money in 2021 and transferred it to a schoolfriend combating with Isis.

Of their WhatsApp messages, Namouz stated: ‘I wish to burn Christianity, we have now incinerators and holocausts like Hitler.’

He additionally acquired a video of the way to make a bomb like that used within the Manchester Area assault.

Namouz was discovered responsible yesterday of offering cash for terrorism and possessing info helpful for terrorism. He shall be sentenced on January 5.

When police raided Namouz’s barbershop in Might final 12 months they discovered £3,170 in money and a hidden cell phone containing messages to his contact in Syria. He despatched greater than £18,000 to Isis

Namouz shall be sentenced in January at Kingston Crown Court docket. Decide Peter Lodder KC stated he would have in mind his earlier conviction for rape.

When police raided Namouz’s barbershop in Might final 12 months they discovered £3,170 in money and a hidden cell phone containing messages to his contact in Syria, an ISIS bomb-making video and a video exhibiting the way to kill somebody with a knife.

In one other message he stated: ‘We are going to take management of all individuals by drive and by the ruling of Sharia legislation.’ Alia instructed his confederate: ‘Whoever just isn’t completely happy, a bullet of their head, I don’t need a single individual alive who would oppose Sharia.’

He additionally claimed Alia had purchased Kalashnikov automated rifles, and the messages included references to purchasing a plot of land and setting up a seven-floor constructing which might act as a butcher’s store and a entrance for a militia group.

Head of Scotland Yard’s counter terror command, Richard Smith stated: ‘Folks like Namouz who present cash to terrorist teams – each within the UK and abroad – are enabling others to go and commit severe and lethal assaults, and we are going to at all times pursue and examine these individuals and search to deliver them to justice.

Decide Peter Lodder KC stated he would ‘discover the implications’ of Namouz’s rape conviction at his sentencing in January.