STOCKHOLM: A Swedish court has cleared a man suspected of using his charity group to help finance groups linked to Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas due to a lack of evidence.
Khaled al-Yousef, a 44-year-old Swedish citizen who heads up the Al Aqsa Grain Foundation, was charged with raising around 4mn kronor ($458,000) for charity and sending it to groups linked to Hamas.
Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, is regarded a terror group by the European Union, the US and a number of other countries, and it is illegal in Sweden to raise funds for it.
Al-Yousef pleaded his innocence throughout the trial in the southern Swedish city of Malmoe, insisting the money he had raised from 2002 to 2007 had gone to independent charities, mainly to help Palestinian orphans.
Prosecutor Agnetha Hilding Qvarnstroem conceded that the money may very well have gone to charity work but said the groups were controlled by Hamas, enabling the Islamist movement to divert funds to militant activities.
The Malmoe district court acknowledged yesterday that there were indications that some of the charities Yousef’s Al Aqsa group had financed had links to Hamas.
It ruled however that “the presented evidence is not sufficient for a guilty verdict”, according to court documents.
The court especially rejected the prosecutor’s use of Israeli documentation to show that the groups were linked to Hamas, pointing out that “Hamas and Israel can be considered to be locked in a war-like stand-off (so) the documents cannot be lent much weight”.
Following the verdict, al-Yousef told Swedish public radio he was “very happy to be free” and that he planned to continue raising funds for Palestinian charities. – AFP