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A former bodyguard of a Hamas leader was convicted of assaulting a judicial enforcement officer outside his home in Britain with a knife.
Muhammad al-Fateh, also known as Muhammad Naim, 40, is also wanted in Germany in connection with an alleged plot to kill Jewish people.
Al-Fateh had appeared in photos while working for a former Hamas leader, before he was granted asylum in Britain in 2015 and then British citizenship in 2020.
Al-Fateh was convicted by a majority decision of the jury, on charges of unlawfully causing wounds, possessing two knives, and destroying property, while Al-Fateh was acquitted of the more serious charge, which was causing wounds with the intent to cause serious bodily harm.
Al-Fatih was under surveillance by an anti-terrorism unit when he assaulted a judicial enforcement officer in the city of Birmingham last year.
Al-Fateh is the son of a prominent Hamas official, and revealing his name was prohibited during the trial under restrictions on media coverage.
During the trial, footage was shown showing him brandishing two large kitchen knives outside his home in the suburb of Kings Heath.
Al-Fateh told the court that he chased the enforcement officer to the other side of the street to scare him and make him move away, after his wife was asked to pay her debts.
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Her car had been tied with a wheel lock at the hands of the enforcement officer, who was involved in a fight inside Al-Fateh’s house, which is a house adjacent to neighboring houses.
Image source: Getty Images
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But the jury was not informed of Al-Fatih's links to Hamas, banned under British anti-terrorism laws, nor of his work as a bodyguard for the former head of its political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, who later died.
While detained in connection with the assault on an enforcement officer in Birmingham, Al-Fateh was re-arrested after German authorities said he participated in an alleged plot to attack Israeli targets in Central Europe.
Al-Fatih, who was born in Germany, is expected to be handed over to the authorities there after serving his sentence in Britain. His connection to Hamas was mentioned in the German extradition request.
When Al-Fatih was known as Naeem, he enrolled in a course to protect important figures, and was chosen to accompany Haniyeh on trips to Egypt and other countries between 2006 and 2008. But he was later removed from this mission because of his behavior.
He is the second son of the former Minister of Health in the Hamas government, Basem Naim, and he later spent periods in Malaysia, Qatar and Turkey before arriving in Britain.
Following his conviction, a government source said that granting him asylum and then citizenship was “astonishing.”
Al-Fatih did not mention Hamas during his testimony, but he told the court that he was tortured for 25 days while detained in Egypt in 2010.
Video footage
The court rejected a request submitted by Al-Fatih, a father of four children who works in the field of information technology, to drop charges of causing wounds, on the grounds that media coverage of the arrest of seven people in Germany in connection with the suspected terrorist plot might negatively affect the fairness of his trial.
German authorities also claim that a man named “Muhammad A.” played a prominent role in transporting and storing weapons, and accuse him of preparing a video in advance claiming responsibility for the attack on behalf of the group.
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During the two-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court, jurors watched footage showing Al-Fateh striking a knife through the broken window of a van on October 14 last year.
The enforcement officer, Kevin Bucknall, suffered head injuries that required hospital treatment, but the accused pleaded not guilty, saying that he acted in self-defense.
Al-Fateh told jurors that the incident occurred a day after he learned that one of his brothers had been killed in Gaza.
He added during his testimony that among the traumatic experiences he went through was being shot and injured on two separate occasions.
He told jurors: "I just want to be as honest as possible. I don't think I was even fully conscious. I only meant for him to get away from me. I was just terrified."
Defense lawyer, Kate Urallah, said that Al-Fateh's sense of danger was exacerbated by the feelings of fear and despair he had previously experienced.
The ruling in the Al-Fateh case will be issued at a later date.
A British Home Office spokesman said that Hamas is an organization banned under anti-terrorism laws, and that the government condemns “those who choose to support its activities and work to achieve its goals.”
The report was contributed by Josh Sandiford
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