SINGAPORE, Feb 22 — Attracted by the ideologies of a Syrian-based terrorist organisation, a former construction worker in Singapore decided to donate close to S$900 (about RM2,794) to various foreign groups to support its cause.
Yesterday, Ahmed Faysal, a 27-year-old Bangladeshi, was given a jail sentence of 32 months, or two years and eight months, after he was found guilty of five offences under the Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act.
Ten other charges were taken into consideration for the sentencing, which was backdated to Dec 23 last year, the date of his remand.
Ahmed donated between S$5 and S$399.57 on 15 occasions between Feb 12 and Oct 27 in 2020, which amounted to about S$892.
Influenced by propaganda
Speaking on behalf of the prosecution, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Esther Wong said that Ahmed first learnt about jihad and the Syrian civil war through Facebook.
He said that he understood jihad to be the “fight for Islam” and “for oppressed and tortured Muslims”, DPP Wong added.
Ahmed would use various Facebook accounts and pages to spread his pro-jihadist views and “glorified the soldiers of jihad and their deaths”.
He initially supported the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis), and even considered going to Syria to support the terrorist organisation to “destroy the Syrian government and establish an Islamic caliphate”.
However, he did not have the money to do so and needed to continue working in Singapore to support his family back in Bangladesh.
In 2019, Ahmed became disillusioned with Isis after watching videos of Muslim scholars condemning the terrorists for killing innocent civilians in the process of establishing their caliphate.
He then changed his allegiance to support another militant group, the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), that similarly aimed to establish its own Islamic caliphate in Syria.
DPP Wong said that Ahmed was under the impression HTS was “less brutal than Isis in achieving its goals”.
HTS was formed in January 2017 by the Al-Nusrah Front, an Al-Qaeda affiliate, and was deemed by the United Nations Security Council as a terrorist entity in June 2018.
DPP Wong also said that Ahmed was aware that the Syrian city of Idlib was under the control of HTS and that he supported the group’s war against the Syrian government.
When he was informed that HTS had detained, tortured and executed civilians, he continued to support the group in its fight against the Syrian government, which he believed to be oppressing Syrian Muslims, DPP Wong added.
The donations
Around the same period he began supporting HTS, Ahmed started following the Facebook page of a “Dr Shajul Islam”, a purported medical doctor with Bangladeshi roots who was supposedly working in a hospital in Idlib run by an entity known as Medical Aid Syria.
On Facebook, Dr Shajul supported the overthrowing of the Syrian government by violent means, and he also voiced his support for HTS members in achieving that objective, DPP Wong said.
He would livestream videos on Facebook to appeal for money as part of a fundraising campaign, which he claimed was for the hospital he worked at, saying that it treated injured HTS soldiers.
Influenced by Dr Shajul’s publicised content, Ahmed made donations to Medical Aid Syria on at least 11 occasions through his Singapore-issued debit card via various online channels.
DPP Wong said that Ahmed “did not know or find out how” his donations to Medical Aid Syria would specifically be used.
“At the time he sent the money, he was aware that the money could be used to benefit HTS soldiers in Idlib. He therefore had reasonable grounds to believe that the money transferred would be used, in part, to benefit the HTS, a terrorist entity,” she added.
In 2020, Ahmed came to learn of another fundraiser through Dr Shajul.
This time, it was a campaign supposedly held by a charity called “One Nation”, registered in Britain, and the money was purportedly to be used to build emergency homes in Syria for people whose houses were destroyed.
Ahmed sent money to One Nation on at least four occasions intending to benefit the people in Idlib, which included HTS soldiers fighting against the Syrian government.
It was not stated how Ahmed’s activities came to the attention of the authorities, but he was eventually arrested under the Internal Security Act for terrorism-related activities and given a detention order on Nov 2, 2020.
He was eventually charged for the offences on December 23 last year.
‘Ready for jihad’
At the time of his arrest, seven knives were found in Ahmed’s possession.
He admitted to buying two kitchen knives, three pen knives and one foldable knife. He also bought three to four foldable blades and three to four boxes of penknife blades, with each box containing 10 penknife blades.
Ahmed said that he bought these weapons to be “ready for jihad”, but had no intentions to use them in Singapore because he wanted to “remain out of trouble and support his family by working here”, DPP Wong said.
However, he said that he would use the knives in Bangladesh if Hindus attacked Muslims and the government there took no action against the perpetrators.
The prosecution noted that Ahmed had not conceived any specific plans at the time of his arrest and did not “intend specific consequences” through his actions.
Seeking a sentence of 34 months, the prosecution said that there was a need for a deterrent sentence because terrorism financing, especially those that involve cross-border transactions, are inherently covert and difficult to detect.
“Singapore continues to fulfil her duty as a member of the global community and its unending fight against terrorism,” DPP Wong said.
“This is an onerous duty that cannot be taken lightly. And a resoundingly severe sentence imposed on offenders who commit terrorism financing offences serves to advance both Singapore’s public interests and deter like-minded persons from similar reproachable conduct.” — TODAY
