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UK gave asylum and citizenship to Haniyeh's ex-bodyguard before terror plot, Sunday Times reports

The Sunday Times reports a former bodyguard of assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was granted UK asylum and citizenship before being arrested over an alleged plot to attack Jewish targets in Germany and Austria.

By Sarah Whitfield · · 2 min read

A former bodyguard of assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was granted asylum and then British citizenship before being arrested over an alleged plot to attack Jewish targets in Europe, the Sunday Times reported on Saturday.

The man, identified only as “Mr X” because his name cannot be published for legal reasons, served on Haniyeh’s personal security detail in Gaza before leaving the territory in 2012, according to the report, corroborated by Haaretz, the Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post, i24News and Ynet. He applied for asylum in 2015 and was granted permanent residency while Theresa May was Home Secretary, later obtaining citizenship, the Jerusalem Post reported. His father was a senior Hamas official, and he was arrested in Egypt over a tunnel used to smuggle weapons and gold into Gaza, according to the reports.

Living under cover as an IT consultant in an English suburb and changing his legal name several times, Mr X allegedly coordinated with Hamas operatives on the continent on attacks against Jewish community centres, Israeli diplomats and pro-Israel demonstrations in Germany or Austria around the second anniversary of the October 7 massacre. Officers from Britain’s National Crime Agency arrested him in central London last November after Mossad and German intelligence uncovered the plot, in a multinational operation that detained seven suspects and seized weapons including an AK-47.

A German indictment, first revealed by Bild, accuses him of transporting handguns, ammunition and camouflage equipment from Berlin to Vienna, and says he filmed himself masked and armed in front of a Hamas flag, describing the planned attack as retaliation on behalf of the Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades. A law enforcement official described him as a “vital figure” in the plot, according to the Jerusalem Post. He now faces extradition to Germany, while a UK criminal case proceeds concurrently.

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