One of the primary purposes of zakat is to raise money for jihad. “Terror twins: Identical brothers who posed as charity collectors to raise funds for terrorism are jailed for three years each,” by Chris Greenwood for the Daily Mail, August 1 (thanks to all who sent this in):
Identical twin brothers who posed as charity collectors to raise thousands of pounds for overseas Al-Qaeda fighters were jailed today.
Shabir and Shafiq Ali, 25, imitated legitimate fundraisers on street stalls collecting money for Palestinians and the world’s poor.
But the pair were in fact wiring money to their elder brother after he travelled to Somalia to join the bloody Islamic insurgency.
They were caught out after counter terrorism police raided their home and discovered a digital recording of a phone conversation with him.
The brothers had kept the encounter as a final memento as they expected he would soon be killed in the fierce fighting.
Sentencing them at the Old Bailey to three years in prison, Mr Justice Fulford said the men sent at least £3,000 to the Horn of Africa.
He said their brother was determined to sacrifice his life alongside others fighting to create an “˜Islamic Emirate of Somalia”
They were inspired by Al-Qaeda hate preacher Anwar Al-Awlaki, the mastermind behind a series of bomb attacks who was killed in a drone strike last year.
The judge added: “˜Both defendants worked to help somebody who was contributing to terrorist activities in a war-torn country in Africa.
“˜The court must reflect the seriousness of offences of this kind in sentences given that they were intended to support terrorism.”
The Ali brothers, dressed in different coloured suits by prison staff so they could be identified, showed no emotion as they were jailed….