He served in the personal security team of Ismail Haniyeh, the former leader of Hamas. Britain gave him asylum in 2015 and, later, a British passport. German prosecutors now allege he was involved in a plot to attack Jewish community centres, Israeli diplomats and pro-Israel demonstrations in Germany or Austria, timed for the second anniversary of the October 7 massacre.
The man is known in the British courts only as Mr X, and he cannot be named for legal reasons. The full story of how he came to live as an IT consultant in suburban England, and what he is accused of doing next, was reported at the weekend by The Sunday Times.
According to that report, Mr X was attached to Haniyeh’s security detail as early as 2006, when Hamas swept to victory in the Palestinian legislative elections. He is the son of another senior Hamas official. Between 2009 and 2012 he travelled back and forth between Europe and Gaza via Egypt, and around this time he was detained by the Egyptian authorities for operating a tunnel used to smuggle guns. His links to Hamas and Haniyeh were, The Sunday Times reports, public knowledge by the time he claimed asylum. Yet he was granted indefinite leave to remain by the Home Office, then overseen by Theresa May, and British citizenship later followed through continued residency. He changed his legal name more than once, registered companies under two identities and settled, with his wife and children, into the suburbs of a large English city. He had attended demonstrations outside the Israeli embassy. In one image circulating online, he escorts Haniyeh through a crowd of supporters raising Kalashnikovs.
Then came the alleged plot. Last July, according to a German indictment first obtained by Bild, he travelled from Istanbul to Berlin and on to Vienna, where he deposited five pistols, ammunition, woollen hats, neck warmers and gloves in a hired storage unit. A further 100 rounds of ammunition followed in August. A co-conspirator later procured an assault rifle, a Yugoslavian Kalashnikov variant, along with eight pistols and 600 rounds. Police found a pre-recorded video of a masked man, said to be Mr X, standing before a Hamas flag and describing the planned attacks as an act of retribution by the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, on the second anniversary of October 7.
According to The Sunday Times, Mossad and Germany’s security and intelligence services learned of the planned attack. National Crime Agency officers arrested Mr X in central London last November. Seven other suspects were detained across Europe in an operation involving Germany, Austria, Denmark and Britain: two Germans, a Dane, a Bulgarian and three Lebanese. German federal prosecutors have since charged seven men over the alleged plot, Reuters reports. One of those arrested, it emerged, was a German intelligence asset who is accused of going rogue and withholding information about the extent of his role. A law enforcement source cited in the reporting described Mr X as an “essential” figure in the plot, and the case has been described in reports as one of the worst terror plots in Germany’s postwar history.
Mr X remains in custody here, awaiting trial in a separate British criminal case. When his lawyer argued that naming him would prejudice that trial, a judge at Westminster magistrates’ court granted him anonymity for 100 years. The duration of the order was only amended on Thursday, after The Sunday Times queried it, meaning he can be named once the separate proceedings are completed. If convicted of the British offence, he will serve any custodial sentence here, then face extradition to Germany, where he is charged with procuring arms for Hamas.
Mr X’s case also sits within a longer history of Hamas-linked figures establishing themselves in Britain. The Sunday Times reports that, over the previous two decades, Britain had become a destination for figures from Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement from which Hamas evolved, with members citing persecution by the Egyptian authorities when claiming asylum. Hamas’s military wing had been proscribed in Britain since 2001, but the organisation as a whole was not proscribed until November 2021, a gap maintained, The Sunday Times reports, to preserve diplomatic back channels. In 2023, the same newspaper revealed that Muhammad Sawalha, who ran Hamas’s terrorist operations in the West Bank and sat on its ruling body, had been living in a north London council house for years.
The case has not gone unnoticed abroad. Jens Rommel, Germany’s chief federal prosecutor, warned recently: “Germany and other European countries are now increasingly being viewed as operational areas for possible attacks.
“This becomes particularly evident in the case of Hamas. To prepare attacks in Europe, their foreign operatives, sympathisers, or individuals connected to organised crime acquire and smuggle weapons.
“They often hold European citizenship or residence permits within the Schengen area, allowing them to move freely. They are highly mobile and extensively networked, and some possess significant financial resources.”
The case leaves questions for the Home Office and the security services about what information was available when Mr X was granted protection and later citizenship, and whether his subsequent activities were monitored. The Sunday Times reports that he is not thought to have been a priority for MI5 as he began co-ordinating with Hamas terrorists on the Continent.
Claire Bullivant, CEO of Great British PAC, said:
“Something has gone profoundly wrong when a man who reportedly served on the personal security detail of a senior Hamas leader can be granted asylum, go on to become a British citizen and then, according to German prosecutors, emerge as an alleged key figure in a terrorist plot targeting Jews in Europe.
“This case raises extremely serious questions about our asylum system, our security vetting and the safeguards surrounding the enormous privilege of British citizenship. The public deserves to know what information was available, what checks were carried out and how this was allowed to happen.”
Bullivant also pointed to separate reports this week that taxpayers could face a £70,000 bill for improvements to the council home occupied by Abu Hamza’s wife. Bullivant said: “In the very same week, taxpayers learned they could be facing a £70,000 bill for improvements to the council home occupied by Abu Hamza’s wife. Whatever the legal explanations behind individual cases, the cumulative picture should concern ministers.
“Britain should be a sanctuary for people genuinely fleeing persecution, but sanctuary cannot mean abandoning common sense or national security. Our first duty must be to protect the British public, uphold the rule of law and ensure that those entrusted with the privilege of living in this country are properly scrutinised. Ministers should urgently explain how this case passed through the system and what is being done to prevent anything like it happening again.”
There is no suggestion of any link between Mr X and a separate operation announced on Tuesday, when counter-terrorism police said they had disrupted a suspected plot to attack Manchester’s Jewish community, described to the BBC as “fairly imminent” and in its later stages of planning. Two men in their 30s were arrested in the city centre on the eve of Yom Kippur under section 41 of the Terrorism Act, in what police called a long-running proactive investigation. It came almost a year after an attacker rammed a car and stabbed worshippers at Heaton Park synagogue on Yom Kippur, killing Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz. The Community Security Trust called the new arrests “utterly chilling”.
The allegation now facing Mr X is extraordinary. The unanswered question for Britain is how much of his past was known, and by whom, before the state gave him its protection and, eventually, its passport.
