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| Birmingham men in court accused of funding Paris attack suspect | Birmingham men in court accused of funding Paris attack suspect |
| (about 5 hours later) | |
| Two men from Birmingham have appeared in court charged with giving £3,000 in cash to Mohamed Abrini, alleged to be involved in the terrorist attacks on Paris and Brussels. | |
| Abrini, captured on camera wearing a hat during the bombing of Brussels airport in March, got the money for terrorist purposes, British prosecutors have said. | |
| The claims of alleged British links to those behind the November 2015 attacks on Paris that killed 130 people and the attacks on Brussels earlier this year, came during the first court appearance of the two men. | |
| Mohammed Ali Ahmed, aged 26, of Small Heath, and Zakaria Boufassil, aged 26, also of Small Heath, appeared at Westminster magistrates court in London on Friday. | |
| The offence relating to Abrini is alleged to have taken place in July 2015. | |
| The two men are alleged to have known or suspected the money would be used for terrorist purposes. | |
| Abrini, 31, was the “man in the hat” spotted alongside two suicide bombers who blew themselves up at Brussels airport on 22 March. Later that day the Maelbeek subway station in the Belgian capital was also attacked. Thirty-two people died during the attacks. | |
| Abrini was wanted over the attacks in Belgium and Paris and was captured in Brussels in April. Abrini has Belgian and Moroccan nationality and is in custody in Belgium. The attacks were claimed by Islamic State. | |
| The charge relating to Abrini reads: “Mohammed Ali Ahmed and Zakaria Boufassil on or before 7 July 2015 entered into an arrangement as a result of which money or other property, namely a quantity of sterling currency, was made available to another and they knew or had reasonable cause to suspect that it would or may be used for the purposes of terrorism contrary to section 17 TACT [Terrorism Act] 2000.” | |
| Ahmed is a British national, Boufassil is a Belgian national as is his sister and fellow defendant Soumaya Boufassil, 29, who is charged with another count of terrorism financing. She appeared in the central London court dressed in a burkha and is also from the Small Heath area of Birmingham. | |
| The charges follow a joint investigation by police and Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5. A joint unit called the West Midlands counterterrorism unit made arrests a fortnight ago in Birmingham and also at Gatwick airport. | |
| West Midlands police released details of a second charge, which the court will also consider: “Mohammed Ali Ahmed and Soumaya Boufassil between 1 January 2015 and 8 April 2016, with the intention of committing acts of terrorism or assisting another to commit such acts engaged in conduct in preparation for giving effect to his intention, namely, accruing monies contrary to section 5 TACT [Terrorism Act] 2006.” | |
| A fortnight ago the three charged were arrested alongside two other people. One has been charged with a non-terrorist offence and another remains on bail. | |
| They were remanded in custody by chief magistrate Howard Riddle and will next appear at the Old Bailey in central London on 13 May. |