Top ISIS fundraiser manages to flee UK
07 Dec 2015
A 45-year-old top fundraiser for the Islamic State terror group in the UK, placed under a strict counter-terrorism order, has reportedly fled the country to join extremists in Syria.
Mohammed Khaled, who lived in west London, had been placed on a terror sanctions list and had his assets frozen.
''The security services believed Khaled was using his London base to raise tens of thousands of pounds for Islamic State (ISIS),'' The Sunday Telegraph reported.
Khaled's disappearance follows claims that one of the terrorists behind the Paris attacks visited two British cities in the run-up to the atrocity in which 130 people were murdered.
Counter-terrorism officials have reportedly established that the man, who has not been publicly identified, travelled to the UK earlier this year.
It is also claimed that phone calls were made to Britain by one or more of the Paris gunmen in the days before the attack. It is not clear when Khaled left the UK but as recently as May this year a new terrorism finance order was issued against him.
Under its terms all his assets in the UK have been frozen and banks have been ordered to close down his accounts and block any financial transactions.
Court papers uncovered by the daily show the security services believed that Khaled "had in fact gone to Syria in order to engage in terrorist activities there. His support and funding of ISIS were the basis of the order".
More than 400 jihadists who fought in Syria and Iraq are believed to have since returned to the UK.
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