Hospital manager sent cash so Isis nephew could kill and maim
A hospital manager and his wife are facing years in jail for sending cash to an Isis fighter who predicted the Charlie Hebdo attack on Twitter.
Mohammed Golamaully, 48 and Nazimabee Golamaully, 45, admitted sending the wiring the cash to nephew Zafirr Golamaully, who is believed to be fighting on the front line for the terror group in Syria.
He used the twitter handle ‘@Palidinofjihad’ to spout his murderous beliefs online.
Just days before the magazine atrocity that claimed 12 victims last January, he posted: ‘Snail-eating people’, followed by an emoticon of a sad face.
Days later Golamaully, who is in his twenties, claimed: ‘You heard it here first. #SnailEaters ate lead. #DustNeverSettledDown.’
On the instruction of her husband, the jihadist’s aunt had wired £219 for Zafirr by Western Union to Islamic State courier Mohamed Alhmidan in August 2014.
Mohammed Golamaully pleaded guilty to providing funding for the purposes of terrorism in September, and his wife pleaded guilty to the same charge a few weeks later on 3 October.
Prosecutor Daniel Pawson-Pounds explained: ‘This case arises out of sending money to Zafirr Golamaully, who is known to be fighting for Isis in Syria.’
‘He was fighting for Islamic State, a fact known to this defendant.
‘The Crown say whether the money was intended or thought to be intended for material in terms of military purposes or subsistence is irrelevant.’
Judge Anuja Dhir QC adjourned their sentencing hearing today, but remanded them into custody ahead of sentence on Tuesday, warning them ‘a sentence of imprisonment is inevitable’.
Prosecutors believe the couple and their family to be radicalised after finding a series of references to Isis leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and hate clerics Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri Mohammed in WhatsApp chats with their niece Lubnaa.
Lubnaa had travelled to Syria to join her brother Zafirr a few months after he joined the caliphate, and was in regular contact with her uncle and aunt in the UK.
In one message she proudly told Mohammed her brother had equipped her with a gun, to which he replied ‘You’ll have to learn how to use it’.
On 12 April 2014 Mohammed told her: I’ve just watched Skh Abu Bakr Al Bagdadi’s video about Allah knows, while you know not! Beautiful speech and very well worded-a truly scholarly style.’
Referring to his sister Zulaker, Lubnaaand Zafirr’s mother, Mohammed said: ‘Send her some photos of some dead children and maybe you need to have a serious chat with her regarding Islam.
‘She seems to be having a good time, enjoying herself and imitating and following the Kuffar.
‘Anwar Awlaki, Skh Abu Hamza, OBM all talked about it.’
In another conversation, Lubnaa asked her uncle: ‘Do you read Inspire magazine?’, adding: ‘It is published by Al-Qaeda. And it is about jihad.’
He responded: ‘I want to have all the Isis nasheeds [Islamic chanting by IS fighters] but you’ll need to be very careful.’
When arrested on 2 April 2015, Mohammed Golamaully told police he had asked his wife to wire the money to help with Zafirr’s ‘studies’.
He claimed Zafirr was studying for a management degree at Ankara University.
But his nephew is thought to have travelled from Mauritius to Syria where he attended an IS training camp and was on ‘guard duty’ patrolling the Turkish border as he battled the Kurdish rebel group PKK.
In WhatsApp exchanges, Mohammed congratulated him on his fight against the PKK saying ‘Those kaffir need to be eradicated’ and later ‘Those dogs need to be eliminated’.
The Mauritian national ran jihadi social media accounts using the Twitter handle ‘Palidinofjihad’ and the Tumblr username ‘Paladinofjihad.com’.
He used the accounts to spout hate as well as tips for would-be jihadis travelling to Syria, and he appeared to have prior knowledge about the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris.
Nazimabee admitted downloading all eight issues of the glossy IS propaganda magazine, ‘Dabiq’, telling police she did not trust the reporting of the Syrian conflict in the Western media.
On 15 April 2014, she sent a message to her husband to say: ‘Nothing is going to be the same anymore without my Zafirr here…
‘Now we are pretty sure he is in Syria itself… make doahs for him… and please do not say anything to anyone.’
The family also discussed Zafirr’s ‘guard duty’ on the Turkish border on WhatsApp.
On 24 April 2014 Mohammed told Lubnaa: ‘He’s on the border near Turkey.’
She replied: ‘Guarding the frontlines.’
Mohammed said there was fighting between ‘PKK and the bros’, adding ‘Those Kafirs PKK need eradicating.’
Zafirr was in direct contact with his uncle and, on 3 May 2014, sent a message that said: ‘They taught us military stances formations and weapons.
‘I asked about how brothers get money. Normally they send it to a contact in Turkey. Then brothers go pick it up.’
Mohammed said: ‘Let me know how you do that’, and Zaffir replied: ‘It’s by Western Union Money Transfer.’
In a message to Zafirr’s mother, Nazimabee congratulated her on her children and expressed a wish that her own would turn out the same way.
‘Your kids have done something exceptional, take comfort in that – you have to believe that the reward will be exceptional too but will come later, probably not in this life, you have to believe that.’
Richard Thomas, for Hussain, described how he had started off as a psychiatric nurse and worked his way up to ward manger in the NHS before becoming hospital manager in the private sector.
‘He’s a hard working family man, bringing up a family and living, as many of us do, an ordinary life,’ said Mr Thomas.
‘He came to realise the true nature of IS, he’s horrified at the language he used.
‘He realises that what had in fact happened was that the organisation he thought was going to be the solution has in fact made things far worse.
‘His family has been subjected to social services who have been working with them – he’s always been a hard working, law abiding family man and the reality is that he’s lost his well paid job.’
Nazimabee’s barrister, Hossein Zahir, described her as naive and that her involvement was much less than that of her husband’s.
‘It’s a single act, there’s no suggestion of any on going continued exchange at all with Zaffir supporting his actions or anything of the kind.’
‘She’s devastated by her actions, she’s mortified, she bitterly regrets the likely impact of this on her family.’
They couple were arrested in April last year following a probe into jailed 49-year-old hate preacher Anjem Choudary’s bodyguard, Michael Coe.
Coe, 35, was accused of wiring £599 to Alhmidan as well as trying to join Islamic State after he was caught sneaking out of Britain in the back of a truck.
He was acquitted of terror offences at the Old Bailey in July last year, but is facing jail for attacking a Muslim schoolboy for hugging his girlfriend in the street.
The investigation revealed Alhmidan had received 107 payments from around the world totaling $148,311, around £115,000.
Ten of the payments were sent from UK branches of Western Union to Alhmidan in Istanbul.
One was a £219 sum transferred by Nazimabee Golamaully’s Lloyds bank account via Western Union on 11 August 2014.
Mohammed and Nazimabee, both of (22) Middle Way, Streatham, southwest London, will be sentenced on November 22.
ENDS