Jihadi fundraiser faces years in jail after MoS ‘sting’
ARRESTED White UK Muslim caught in MoS sting collecting jihadi ‘cash’
AN ISLAMIC State fundraiser living in Waterford was facing up to 20 years jail last night after an undercover sting by The Mail on Sunday.
Hassan Bal, 26, was centrally involved in a massive fundraising operation in Britain and Ireland. Cash collected by his network of couriers was funnelled to Syria and used to buy weapons, clothes and equipment for jihadi fighters.
He was born in Britain to an Irish mother. As the key prosecution witness at his trial next month, an MoS reporter was due to give evidence from behind a screen to protect his identity.
The trial was called off after Bal pleaded guilty at a hearing at Waterford District court on Friday to two counts of fundraising for Isis. He is due for sentencing in April.
The MoS’s daring undercover operation – involving secret filming of a courier collecting what he thought to be cash – led to an investigation involving the gardaí, British police, the FBI and Interpol.
Bal was arrested in May last year at the rented Waterford flat he shared with his pregnant wife.
One charge he admitted involved transferring €400 to a jihadi contact in Bracka, Bosnia, by money transfer, knowing the money would then be sent to Isis in Syria.
He also pleaded guilty to attempting to collect cash from a man in London known to him as Omar Abu Aziz through the use of an intermediary on October 23, 2015.
Omar Abu Aziz was in fact MoS undercover reporter Omar Wahid. And the ‘intermediary’ tasked with collecting the cash was Bal’s elder brother, Adam Locksley, 30, an electrician and plumber.
The MoS launched its investigation into Isis fundraising in 2015. Reporter Wahid contacted an infamous British extremist called Omar Hussain, 30, also known as the Supermarket Jihadi, who urged his followers to help fund jihad. Hussain put Wahid – posing as a British Isis sympathiser – in touch with an American fighter in Syria called Abu Issa Al-Amriki.
Amriki told Wahid to send 1,000 dollars or euros, suggesting he steal the money from non-Muslims.
He wrote: ‘Stealing from kuffar [non-believers] for mujahideen [jihad fighters] is halal [lawful].’
Then, Wahid was given the name of a British-based Isis fundraiser, Abu Abdul-Rahman Britani, who would arrange for the cash to be collected. It is suspected Britani and Bal are one and the same.
During several weeks of often tense exchanges, the reporter gained Britani’s trust and was eventually told to bring the money in a brown envelope to a builders’ warehouse in north London.
Instead of cash, the reporter put an A-Z map book in the envelope and left it on top of a yellow cement bag.
Waiting nearby were members of an undercover MoS team, poised to secretly film whoever picked up the ‘cash’.
Locksley then arrived and picked up the package while appearing to receive instructions on a mobile phone.
The MoS contacted police immediately, and handed over the evidence on Locksley, and all the communications with Britani, Amriki and Hussain.
Locksley was later arrested near his home and his flat was raided. He was on bail for almost a year before being discharged with no further action taken.
Abu Issa Amriki and his American wife, Umm Issa Amriki, were killed in a US drone strike last April. The Pentagon described them as ‘recruiters for Isis’. The fate of Supermarket Jihadi Omar Hussain is less clear, with some media reports saying he might have been executed by Isis for disobeying orders. Bal was remanded in custody until his April 10 court appearance.
Lived in Waterford and has an Irish mother