Isil ‘executioner’ who claimed UK benefits is captured in Syria

THE Isil fighter who conned the British government out of £10,000 in benefits to fund terror attacks in Paris and Brussels has been captured in Syria.

Anouar Haddouchi, dubbed the “executioner of Raqqa” after beheading more than 100 people in the city, was arrested with his wife Julie Maes, 32, by Kurdish troops, it was reported yesterday.

The couple were understood to have been captured after a battle for one of the last remaining Islamic State strongholds in Baghouz, eastern Syria.

Haddouchi is being held in a prison run by the Syrian Democratic Forces.

The 35-year-old was born in Belgium but moved to Birmingham, in the West Midlands, in 2009 where he and his wife, who is also Belgian, claimed thousands of pounds in housing benefits despite having moved to Syria to fight for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

According to British court papers, he left Birmingham for Syria in Sept 2014. Despite his landlord telling Birmingham City Council he had left his property, neither the local authority nor Department for Work and Pensions halted payments.

The pair were paid about £10,000 in state handouts, all of which was handed to Isil supporters.

Mohammed Abrini, the jihadist known as “the man in the hat” suspected of carrying out the Paris and Brussels bomb and gun attacks, was said to have been handed £3,000 of that cash by two men in Birmingham.

He was understood to have travelled to Syria via Turkey following the death of his Isil fighter brother. While there he met Abdelhamid Abaaoud, suspected of being one of the ring leaders of the attacks across the French capital which resulted in 130 deaths.

Abrini claimed Abaaoud ordered him to travel to Birmingham to collect some of the housing benefit cash. It was claimed he flew to Heathrow in July 2015 before taking a bus to Birmingham.

After three days in the city he was told to travel to the Small Heath area where he met Zakaria Boufassil and Mohammed Ali Ahmed who handed over the money in a park.

Boufassil, a 27-year-old Belgian who had also lived in Birmingham, was jailed in 2016 at Kingston Crown Court for three years for aiding terrorism. Ahmed pleaded guilty to the same offence.

In March 2016, Abrini was captured on CCTV alongside two men who detonated bombs in suitcases killing 12 people at Brussels airport.

He was charged with alleged involvement in the 2015 Paris terror attacks that killed 130 people. He is also facing charges in Belgium.

Investigators have alleged that Albrini was part of an Isil cell in Brussels which planned both the suicide bombings in 2016, when 32 people were killed, and the Paris attack.

Haddouchi, who became Isil’s executioner, could be tried in Syria, Belgium or France.

It is understood that if he is tried in Iraq he would face the death penalty if found guilty of decapitating innocent people.

Iraq previously sentenced Isil terrorists to face capital punishment after several were captured in 2017.