Humza Yousaf: the Hamas Connection

In a post yesterday, I mentioned that Humza Yousaf had been a director of the Scottish Islamic Foundation and that the Scottish Islamic Foundation had ties to Islamic extremists and had even introduced a man alleged to have been involved in terrorism, Mohammed Sahalwa, to officials of the Scottish government.

Now we have the proof that Humza Yousaf himself was personally involved in this. The graphic shows a screen capture documenting a meeting between SIF personnel, including Humza Yousaf, and Mohammed Sawalha. This establishes that Humza Yousaf had a personal acquaintance with Sawalha. The original web page is here.

This page has some excellent information on Mohammed Sawalha's background, some of it reproduced below.

In 2005, the Sunday Times reported:

Sawalha’s link with Hamas emerged after he was named as a co-conspirator in an American court case involving racketeering and conspiracy. Last week the cleric, who arrived in Britain 15 years ago and has been given indefinite leave to remain, said that he still supported Hamas, notorious for its suicide attacks in Israel.

Asked whether he supported the military activities of Hamas, he replied: "I have no comment on the question of military activity."

...According to US court documents, Sawalha was a leading militant in the early 1990s “in charge of Hamas terrorist operations within the West Bank”. The documents, from the federal court in Chicago, claim he met two of the three “conspirators” accused of laundering millions of dollars to finance Hamas activities, including the purchase of weapons.

Hamas was classified as a terrorist organisation by the UK government in 2003.

On Panorama, the BBC reported:

From London, Sawalha is said to have master minded much of Hamas’ political and military strategy. Wanted by Israel, he fled to London in 1990… In London, Sawalha is alleged to have directed funds, both for Hamas’ armed wing, and for spreading its missionary dawah. Then, in January 1993, an operation Sawalha was involved in went badly wrong. Hamas would be forced to reorganise its funding arrangements. A senior Hamas man from America flew into London for instructions from Sawalha. Sawalha’s visitor was en route to the Palestinian territories. The two men travelled to Sawalha’s home. His visitor’s name was Mohammed Salah. Salah’s mission was to distribute funds. Sawalha told him who to meet in the Palestinian territories…. With Sawalha’s agreement Salah began distributing about a quarter of a million dollars to local Hamas operatives. Some was ear marked for military activities. Some for missionary dawah. More money was in the pipe line from his bank in Chicago. But the Israeli’s had been tracking him. Stopped at a check point as he left Gaza, Salah was arrested.’

How can Humza Yousaf complain about being stopped at airports when he has associations with known extremists?

Humza Yousaf Complains About Being Questioned at Airport

In the Herald yesterday, Humza was at it again - except this time he wasn't just complaining about Muslims in general being searched at airports; he claimed that he himself had been.

AN MSP has become the latest Muslim to be caught up by airport security checks while returning from holiday.

...Glasgow MSP Humza Yousaf was selected from among returning passengers at Edinburgh Airport while coming back from holiday with his wife Gail Lythgoe.

The SNP MSP stressed he was not seeking special treatment just because he was an elected public figure, but he said it demonstrated Schedule 7 stops had no basis in terms of security or intelligence and were based simply on skin colour.

“I was stopped coming into Edinburgh Airport returning with my wife from a break in Istanbul via Charles de Gaulle in Paris, our first holiday since our honeymoon a year ago.

“We were pulled aside, our passports were screened under Schedule 7 and we were asked where we had been and why we were there. It is the fourth or fifth time this has happened to me, but the first since I was married last year.

“My wife felt humiliated and I felt angry at this. Coming into Edinburgh Airport you should be thinking about whether your luggage is there rather than this kind of thing.”

He added: “The problem is that under Schedule 7 they don’t even have to have reasonable suspicion to stop you. It’s a shame. This is my home, my country. It’s where I was born, and I hope I would have a history of public service.

A history of public service? Is that a joke? He was appointed an MSP a few weeks ago and has spent all his time since then agitating on behalf of Muslims and against the interests of the Scottish people. A history of public menace more like.

“I don’t expect any preferential treatment from anyone else, but this demonstrates there is clearly no intelligence involved whatsoever, nothing other than the colour of your skin or the flight you are on. No-one else was stopped on our flight, so far as I could tell. I am not saying this is racist. It’s just that it isn’t led by good intelligence.”

In fact there are compelling reasons why Humza Yousaf's name should be right at the top of the airport security staff's list of suspicious characters.

Humza Yousaf's cousin, Osama Saeed, spoke admiringly of the terrorist leader Anwar Al Awlaki. Like Saeed, who also stood as a candidate for the Scottish National Party, Yousaf was a director of the Scottish Islamic Foundation, which had documented links to Islamic extremists.

The Quilliam foundation said this about these links:

Through the Scottish Islamic Foundation, Osama Saeed has given a platform to some of the most prominent Islamists in the UK. For example, the SIF has arranged on two occasions for Kemal Helbawy, the founder of the Muslim Association of Britain, and Alamin Belhaj, the head of the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood, to lecture young Scottish Muslims on Islam. On other occasions, Saeed’s SIF has given platforms to yet more foreign Islamists, including two senior members of the Brotherhood-linked Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the former head of the US branch of the Saudi-Wahhabi group the World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY).

The Times reports that the Scottish Islamic Foundation arranged a "meeting between culture minister Linda Fabiani and Mohammed Sawalha, who is alleged to have directed terror operations in the West Bank."

Sawalha, president of the British Muslim Initiative, was named in US court documents as a leading militant in the early 1990s “in charge of Hamas terrorist operations within the West Bank”.

The documents alleged he met two “conspirators” accused of laundering millions of dollars to finance the group’s activities. In 2006, the BBC’s Panorama accused him of directing funds to Hamas’s armed wing.

The cleric, who arrived in Britain 17 years ago and was given indefinite leave to remain, has refused to denounce the terrorist group.