Yousaf’s links to Hamas – Holyrood Meeting With Former Hamas Leader
In 2008, Yousaf, then a parliamentary assistant to MSP Bashir Ahmad and his cousin Osama Saeed, arranged a meeting between Linda Fabiani the Scottish Culture and External Affairs Secretary and former *senior Hamas commander Mohammad Sawalha (described by BBC Panorama as the mastermind behind much of Hamas’ political and military strategy) who was accompanied by two other Hamas supporting activists, Anas Altikriti and Ismail Patel.
Iraqi-born Altikriti frequently voiced support for Hamas, saying it was “fighting back” against Israeli occupation. Patel, who founded the Midlands-based Friends of Al-Aqsa said: “The current political map of Palestine… will have to include Hamas and Fatah amongst other political groups. Hamas is a resistance movement against colonial oppression and the backbone of Palestinian resistance.
Soon after the meeting Yousaf and Saeed established an Islamic lobbying group, The Scottish Islamic Foundation (SIF). Its first chief executive was Saeed who had previously expressed support for Islamists including Anwar al-Awlaki, the extremist preacher who inspired numerous Muslim terrorists, but who, he said, “preached nothing but peace.”
The SIF was awarded £405,000 in grants from the SNP government and announced the country’s biggest ever celebration of Islamic culture in Glasgow for June 2009.
But the project collapsed and SIF was forced to repay £128,000 of the taxpayer funds it had received, with £72,000 already spent. Yousaf was also a director of SIF Ltd between May 2008 and September 2009.
Afternote: SIF was wound up after spending several hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money with almost nothing to show for it and with large sums unaccounted for. Humza Yousaf’s aunt and mother were employed by the charity which was placed on a watch list after being described as an entry-level group for Islamists.
Financial Aid to the Hamas-Ruled Gaza Strip
*Sawalha was Hamas’ West Bank military chief before being appointed to its political leadership. He reportedly fled the Gaza Strip in 1990 after being placed on a wanted list by Israel. Hamas had at the time been proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the US, but the UK did not follow suit until 2021.
Sawalha attended the meeting at Holyrood as a representative of Islam Expo, which was funded by a £2 million grant from Qatar and held in London in 2006 and 2008.
The Expos, run by Sawalha, included an appearance by Sheikh Qazi Hussain Ahmed, a Pakistani politician who praised the Taliban as “just and honourable men.”
Lord Carlisle, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said: “Yousaf must address the circumstances in which he judged it appropriate to have close contact with Hamas supporters.
The international community has sent billions of dollars in aid to the Gaza Strip in recent years to provide relief to the more than 2 million Palestinians living in the isolated, Hamas-ruled territory.
The aid is intended to ease the burden on civilians of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed on Gaza when the Islamic militant group seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.
Israel says the heavy restrictions on trade and movement are needed to keep Hamas from enhancing its military capability, while critics view it as a form of collective punishment. Israel and Hamas have fought five wars since 2008, the most recent in 2023.
Israel closely supervises aid to try to ensure it bypasses Hamas. But the Hamas-run government benefits from foreign countries footing the bill for schools, hospitals and infrastructure, allowing it to conserve its resources, including the taxes and customs it collects.
Scottish Financial Aid to the UN’s Gaza Appeal:
Yousaf pledged to donate $1 million as Scotland’s humanitarian funding to the UN’s Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) appeal.
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