Western Mail

FORMER COMPANY DIRECTOR HELD OVER ALLEGED ISIS LINKS

- Tom Houghton Reporter tom.houghton@walesonlin­e.co.uk

ACARDIFF man who ran a firm developing websites for small firms, including takeaways, is being held in Spain over allegation­s linked to a plot to fund and equip terror groups.

The 34-year-old man is linked to a network of front companies, run from an office in the Welsh capital, which the FBI has alleged in court papers were used to finance terror and ship military-grade equipment around the world.

The Sunday Times reported that balaclava-clad police with assault rifles raided Ataul Haque’s home in Merida, southwest Spain, on Friday morning.

The newspaper reported that he later appeared before an investigat­ing judge at the national criminal court in Madrid.

Companies House records show that the arrested man, whose nationalit­y is listed as British and his home as Cardiff, was the director of a now-dissolved firm called Ibacstel Electronic­s, based at Alexandra Gate, Ffordd Pengam, in Tremorfa, Cardiff.

Another director was another man called Siful Haque Sujan, 33, who is reported to have been his younger brother and who was killed in an air strike in Syria, according to the Pentagon.

At the time the Pentagon said that Sujan, who used to own a house in Rhydfelin, Pontypridd, was an Islamic State computer hacker who supported weapons developmen­t for the jihadist group and was one of ten IS leaders killed in air strikes.

A third director was a man called Abdul Samad, 26, who was arrested in December 2015 in Cardiff and who, according to the FBI papers filed with a court in Baltimore, US, has described his work for the brothers to terror investigat­ors.

The FBI papers were made public after Mohamed Elshinawy, an American IS supporter arrested in 2015, pleaded guilty in a Maryland court to accepting nearly $9,000 from Bangladesh­i companies and Ibacstel Electronic­s, based in Cardiff and Newport, to finance an attack in the US.

The 32-year-old is awaiting sentence.

The FBI papers allege the Cardiff firm followed instructio­ns from its director Sujan to send money to Elshinawy in Maryland, and to buy military-grade equipment to ship to Turkey.

They allege that Sujan “developed ‘the type of Islam’ that was ‘aggressive and angry’ and expressed his belief to fellow director Samad that killing innocent people was justified.”

They say: “Samad indicated his belief that Sujan would elect to conduct harm by way of operating behind computers because that was his training and expertise.”

The FBI documents say that the firm, Ibacstel, bought equipment including scanners and surveillan­ce equipment and that the elder brother Haque arranged with Samad for them to be shipped to Turkey, 20 miles from the Syrian border.

It states that these items were inconsiste­nt with Ibacstel’s stated business of website and software developmen­t and retail systems for firms.

The papers also detail evidence of the purchase of infrared equipment from a firm in Canada selling “military-grade surveillan­ce equipment” that uses a heat-identifyin­g camera.

Before his arrest, Haque gave an interview to a website called Middle East Eye in which he said that he was following his younger brother’s instructio­ns.

He said: “I’m a normal Muslim. I do not support Islamic State.

“We followed his instructio­ns. I was not aware it was going on. I was completely unaware what he was doing.”

“If we did anything, and I’m not saying we did, we did it as employees of the company.”

The Sunday Times reports that Haque, who once lived in Pontypridd, moved to Spain in August 2015 with his wife, who is Spanish and converted to Islam.

He has said he would co-operate with police.

 ??  ?? > Cardiff-based businessma­n Siful Haque Sujan, originally from Bangladesh, who was killed near the city of Raqqah on December 10
> Cardiff-based businessma­n Siful Haque Sujan, originally from Bangladesh, who was killed near the city of Raqqah on December 10
 ??  ?? > Alexandra Gate business park in Cardiff
> Alexandra Gate business park in Cardiff

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