METRO
In the UK, Sawalha continued to work for Hamas. He held secret discussions about ‘revitalising’ terrorist acts in Israel and helping to launder money to fund activities in the West Bank and Gaza, according to a 2004 US Department of Justice indictment.
In 2003, the father of four became a council tenant at the two-storey home with a garage and a garden in Colindale.
Some 56,616 Jews live in the borough of Barnet, the highest Jewish population of any in Britain, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The council’s leader, Barry Rawlings, said he was ‘horrified to think [Sawalha] could be living in our midst’ and noted that he had launched a review.
He said: ‘We will liaise with other stakeholders including the police and the government in reviewing the full history of this case and will take all appropriate action.
‘This has emerged at a time when communities locally are in desperate need of reassurance following the escalating conflict in the Middle East, and we have a responsibility as the council to ensure we can give that reassurance.’
In 2020, Rawlings said that the UK Lawyers for Israel campaign group had informed the council of Sawalha’s background and that, as soon as it had received this information, officials ‘reported it to the counterterrorism unit at the Met Police’.
National Terrorist Financing Investigation Unit officers determined whether the tenancy agreement may have contravened sanctions legislation.
But a spokesman said ‘the evidential test was not met’ and there was no further action taken.
The sale of the property the following year has not been subjected to an investigation.
In 2019, Sawalha met Vladimir Putin’s deputy foreign minister at an official Hamas delegation to Moscow. He served on Hamas’s politburo from 2013 to 2017 and he was photographed with the group’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in 2010 and 2012.
In 2009, Sawalha signed a declaration that commended Allah for having ‘routed the Zionist Jews’, made a plea for weapons to be sent to Gaza, and demanded a ‘Third Jihadist Front’ be set up in Palestine, alongside Afghanistan and Iraq.
