Guilty, jihadi pair who used Henning aid trip to fund IS
A PAIR of Islamic extremists who infiltrated a Briton’s aid convoy to smuggle cash to jihadis in Syria were facing jail yesterday.
Charity worker Alan Henning was beheaded by Islamic State’s ‘Jihadi John’ after being kidnapped within minutes of arriving in Syria on a convoy which was secretly being used to smuggle cash and equipment to terrorists.
The former taxi driver, 47, had no idea that the charity convoy he had joined was being used as cover to send thousands of pounds to the warzone to set up a jihadi night sniper squad.
Yesterday Syed Hoque, 37, a former probation worker, was convicted at the Old Bailey of funding terrorism after he sent £4,500 on two convoys to Syria so that his jihadi nephew fighting there could buy a sniper rifle.
He and gas engineer Mashoud Miah, 28, infiltrated the deliveries of food and medicine by Islamic charities, sending wads of cash to fund a team of terrorist marksmen.
Just months after Mr Henning was kidnapped in December 2013, Hoque encouraged his nephew, Mohammed Choudhury, 26, fighting with Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian wing of al-Qaeda, to take part in beheadings.
There was no suggestion he was involved in the death of Mr Henning who was kept hostage for ten months until he was beheaded by ISIS executioner Jihadi John in October 2014.
Choudhury, who has never returned to the UK after leaving East London for Syria in 2012, discussed with his uncle the purchase of a Dragunov sniper rifle, AK-47 and a telescopic sight for night use.
Annabel Darlow QC, prosecuting, said: ‘Normal routes of delivery of property and money to Syria, are now, of course, out of the question and the convoys would have provided a useful conduit for these defendants to abuse the spirit of the convoys to convey money and property to terrorists.’
But the scam was uncovered when Hoque and his wife were stopped at Heathrow in August 2014 as they returned from Bangladesh.
His phone was seized which later revealed the incriminating WhatsApp chats with his nephew about weaponry. Yesterday Hoque, from Stoke, was convicted of two counts of fund- ing terrorism and Miah, from East London, was found guilty of a charge that he made material available for terrorism.
Another prominent charity fundraiser Pervez Rafiq, who travelled on the same convoy as Alan Henning and counted him as a friend, was cleared of any involvement after claiming that he had been paid £30,000 to work as an informant for MI5.
A fourth defendant, Mohammed Hussain, 30, from Mile End, in East London was cleared of trying to get hold of equipment.
Judge John Bevan QC remanded both in custody yesterday ahead of sentencing next month.
Detective Chief Superintendent Clive Wain, head of the North East Counter-Terrorism Unit, said the case had been complex: ‘These men utilised aid convoys on a number of occasions as a cover for their support of terrorism in Syria.’
‘They abused spirit of the convoys’