22/02/11

By Andrew Holt

The Charity Commission has today published a report on its Inquiry into the charity Iqra finding there is no evidence that the charity’s funds had been used to facilitate the 7/7 London terrorist attacks.

The charity’s object was the advancement of the Islamic faith; it furthered this by running the Iqra Learning Centre, a bookshop and centre for religious learning in Leeds.

The charity ceased to operate in 2005.

Following the terrorist attacks in London on 7 July 2005, the charity was publicly linked to two of the perpetrators who died in the attacks and had been former trustees of the charity. These were Mohammad Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer.

A further two former trustees were found guilty of terrorism related offences.

The Commission opened a statutory Inquiry to examine whether the charity may have been involved in terrorist, extremist or other inappropriate activities and ensure that the charity’s property and remaining funds were properly used to further its objects.

From an analysis of the information available, including financial records relating to the charity, there was no evidence that the charity’s funds had been used to facilitate the attacks.

Kenneth Dibble, director of Legal and Compliance at the Charity Commission, said: “The public association of this charity with those who carried out the 7/7 attacks raised serious regulatory concerns for the Charity Commission.

"Although the investigation of the attacks themselves was a matter for police and other law enforcement agencies, we had a duty to investigate any role played by the charity in their planning.”

The Inquiry reviewed the material removed by the police from the charity’s premises as part of the criminal investigation into the 7/7 attacks.

This included video tapes, written material and material held on the charity’s computers.

The Inquiry found that the majority of this material was appropriate for a charity with the object of advancing the Islamic faith.

However, some was political, biased, propagandist or otherwise inappropriate for a charity.

The Inquiry found that following the 7/7 attacks in 2005 the charity’s remaining trustees disassociated themselves from it.

Before doing so they did not take appropriate steps to ensure that the charity’s remaining assets were applied in furtherance of its charitable purpose.

The Inquiry consequently temporarily froze the charity’s bank accounts to protect its remaining funds.

The Commission will exercise its regulatory powers to ensure their use for the purpose of the charity.

The Commission's analysis in today's report was supported by a published report presented to Parliament which considered that the costs of the 7/7 terrorist attacks were funded by Mohammed Siddique Khan personally.

On page 23 the report it states: "…current indicators are that the group was self-financed. There is no evidence of external sources of income….The group appears to have raised the necessary cash by methods that would be extremely difficult to identify as related to terrorism or other serious criminality. Khan appears to have provided most of the funding. Having been in full-time employment for 3 years since university, he had a reasonable credit rating, multiple bank accounts, credit cards and a £10,000 personal loan."

The report published today by the Commission highlights issues arising from this investigation that should be taken into account by trustees across the wider charitable sector.

It is the responsibility of trustees to safeguard their charity from the risk of abuse, including terrorist abuse. The Commission has published clear, practical guidance for trustees on this issue, Protecting charities from harm: Charities and terrorism, which is available on the Commission’s website

The full report of the inquiry is available on the Charity Commission’s website:
here

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