LONDON: The owner of a London barber shop who claimed thousands of pounds in COVID-19 grant payments and sent the money to Daesh militants in Syria was on Thursday jailed for 12 years.
Tarek Namouz, 43, from west London, had received the bounce-back loans from the British government during the coronavirus pandemic to support his hair-cutting business.
The scheme was introduced to help companies during the global virus outbreak, with small and medium-sized enterprises able to borrow between £2,000 and up to 25 percent of their turnover.
Namouz had previously been found guilty of eight counts of funding terrorism and two of possessing information likely to be useful for terrorism, Sky News reported.
The sentence was handed down at Kingston Crown Court and included a further year on extended licence.
Namouz sent around £11,280 to Syria on dates between November 2020 and April 2021, the court heard. The money was intended to fund a militia in the country.
He was also recorded telling someone visiting him in prison while on remand that he had sent around £25,000, the court was told.
Prosecutors said cash and a hidden mobile phone containing messages to a contact in Syria, a Daesh bomb-making video, and a video showing how to kill with a knife, were found at the barber shop after a police raid.
Commander Richard Smith, head of the Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism command, said that terrorist groups relied on funding to carry out their activities and to continue to operate.
“People like Namouz who provide money to terrorist groups — both in the UK and overseas — are enabling others to go and commit serious and deadly attacks, and we will always pursue and investigate those people and seek to bring them to justice,” Smith added.
Judge Peter Lodder said Namouz had shown a “commitment to terrorism” and had planned to “re-establish a state run in accordance with extreme Islamic principles.”
He added: “In 2020 and 2021 you ran a barber’s shop in Hammersmith. You were entitled to COVID-19 bounce-back loans which were paid to you by the local council.
“You sent that money, and other money, through a west London transfer and currency exchange, to terrorists in Syria.”
