British ISIS bomber “may have” used taxpayers’ money to flee to Syria

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The terrorist group said that Jamal al-Harith, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, drove a vehicle into a military compound near Mosul on Monday night, before it exploded causing multiple injuries.

These events, due to the ongoing security situation in Syria, cannot be independently verified. However, a family member told Channel 4 News on Monday that the picture Isis released was that of al-Harith.

Now, his wife Shukee Begum, said that the sum of money he received from the British government, was “substantially less” than the million pounds being reported, but confirmed that taxpayers’ money “may have” been used to pay for his extremist activities – including travel to Syria where he joined Isis.

Her revelations come after the government today said it will investigate whether there was misuse in the compensation agreement with al-Harith and if so, an attempt to recover the money could be made.

In a heated exchange in the Commons today, Security Minister Ben Wallace said he would “make sure that where we have legally binding agreements that they are correctly monitored and where there is a breach, we shall recover any monies we can.”

Flight to Syria

In 2015 Channel 4 News disclosed that Ms Begum had flown to Syria with her five children, she says, to try to persuade her husband to return to the UK.

Ms Begum said after his release from Guantanamo Bay in 2004 and return to the UK and for nearly ten years he did not pose a threat. His radicalisation she says, began in late 2013, and was a response to atrocities committed by the regime in Syria.

His views changed after contact in Manchester with a man called Raphael Hostey – known as Abu Qaqa al-Britaini – a major Isis recruiter prior to his death in a drone strike in Syria last year.

Today Ms Begum said following questions over the monitoring of her husband, he was “stopped and questioned by UK authorities for six hours on his return” from a trip to Gaza in 2009, but otherwise she thinks he “was not monitored”.