The British government granted asylum and citizenship to a former Hamas leader’s bodyguard, who is currently facing charges of plotting an attack on Jewish targets in Germany from his home in England.
A bombshell report from the Sunday Times revealed that the former bodyguard of Ismail Haniyeh, who was then serving as Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, was granted asylum and and granted indefinite leave to remain by the Home Office of Theresa May under the former Conservative government of David Cameron in 2015.
According to the Times, the man referred to only as “Mr X” for legal reasons was publicly tied to Haniyeh at least by 2006. Haniyeh would later be declared a terrorist by the U.S. State Department in 2018, and served as chairman of Hamas’s Political Bureau during the October 7 attacks against Israel in 2023. He was ultimately assassinated by Israel in an explosion at a guesthouse in an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) compound in Tehran in 2024.
In addition to having served on Haniyeh’s security detail, Mr X is also said to have been the son of another top Hamas leader, and had reportedly been arrested in Egypt for running a smuggling tunnel to Gaza for the transport of guns and gold into the territory.
However, it is currently unclear what information British Home Office officials had about Mr X and his role in Hamas at the time he was granted asylum or whether they were aware that there were public reports tying him to the Palestinian terrorist organisation.
Mr X was later granted British citizenship after having remained in the country for the requisite time to qualify, apparently with no concerns raised by multiple Tory governments.
The Sunday Times further reported that he changed his legal name more than once while living in the UK and posed as a married IT specialist living in an English suburb.
However, while doing so, Mr X was allegedly coordinating a string of terror attacks on Jewish community centres in Germany, Israeli officials, and pro-Israel protests in Austria and Germany.
He was arrested last year by Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) after it was tipped off by German and Israeli intelligence concerning the terror plots.
Given that he is currently facing a separate criminal case, a judge at Westminster Magistrates’ Court granted him anonymity so the terror charges do not unduly influence the other trial. Therefore, for the time being, he can only be referred to as “Mr X” in the media until the criminal proceedings conclude.
Should he be convicted and serve prison time in Britain, upon his release, he is to be extradited to Germany, which has levied charges of gun running for Hamas on top of the plots against Jewish targets.
The case has sparked renewed scrutiny of Britain’s lax immigration system, and particularly the failures of the previous Tory government. Appearing on Sky News on Sunday, the Conservative Party’s Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Philp, argued that there was “nothing” the former Tory government could have done to prevent Mr X from being granted asylum and Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR).
Philp argued that the so-called human rights apparatus stemming from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has boxed in the British government, preventing it from being flexible enough to prevent bad actors from gaming the asylum system, and therefore, the UK should leave the ECHR, which is technically separate from the European Union and thus Britain’s membership was not impacted by Brexit.
However, critics were quick to note that Philp and the Conservative Party had previously supported staying within the ECHR, only changing their position on the matter after falling behind in the polls to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which has called for Britain to leave the European agreement since the party was founded and has vowed to abolish Indefinite Leave to Remain.
Commenting on the revelations, Mr Farage said on Sunday: “How can anyone trust the Tories again after today’s news? They gave refugee status and ILR to a known terrorist, allowing him to become a British citizen. The man had public ties to Hamas’ leadership!
“They failed to protect you. Only Reform will keep the British people safe.”
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