Leader of UK’s biggest Muslim charity quits over anti-Semitic posts
A senior leader of Britain’s largest Muslim charity
has quit after it was revealed he had posted anti-Semitic messages on social
media in a months-long tirade.
Heshmat Khalifa, who was a trustee of the Islamic
Relief Worldwide charity, resigned after being confronted with more than a
dozen offensive Facebook posts from 2014 and 2015.
AUK Companies House filing for Islamic Relief
Worldwide said Mr Khalifa had resigned as a director on July 16. The posts were
uncovered by investigators from The Times. It said the Charity Commission, the
British regulator, had opened a compliance enquiry into the body.
In the posts shown in the newspaper in a screen grab
image, Mr Khalifa, 63, described Jews in an extremely offensive manner and was
abusive towards Egypt’s President, Abdel Fattah El Sisi.
Mr Khalifa, a British citizen, said the Palestinian
militant group Hamas was “the purest" such movement in history.
Islamic Relief was among 85 organisations designated
as terrorist groups by the UAE Cabinet in 2014. According to a freedom of
information request, the British foreign office believed it "had
issues" over terrorist allegations. "Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW)
is a UK-based charity that has been designated by [redacted] UAE (November
2014) under their domestic Counter-Terrorism sanctions legislation due to
alleged connections with Hamas," an internal memo said at the time.
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The charity has told The Times that it “sincerely
regrets any offence caused”, and that the offensive posts were at odds with its
values.
Mr Heshmat has resigned “with immediate effect”, it
said.
Since its foundation in 1984, Islamic Relief
Worldwide has grown fast and redistributes aid on behalf of the British
government among other funders.
The charity, which over the past five years reported
income of £570 million (Dh2.66 billion) has received contributions from
high-profile organisations including the UN and European Commission.
It now operates in more than 40 countries around the
world and has branches in the US, Germany, South Africa and Australia, where Mr
Khalifa was until recently chairman.
The charity has in the past been forced to deny
links to Islamist extremist groups.
