Arab News | Five charged in France over alleged Hamas funding

PARIS: Five people have been charged in France on suspicion of sending funding via humanitarian groups to a third party seeking to collect money for Hamas, the French National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) said Saturday.

The PNAT told AFP the five were taken into custody on Tuesday by investigators from the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI), which is leading the investigation.

On Friday, a judicial inquiry was opened into “financing a terrorist organization, in this case Hamas”, which would if proven constitute a breach of trust as well as money laundering in connection with a terrorist group.

Three of the five suspects were placed under judicial supervision on PNAT’s recommendation.

The office said it “requested the pretrial detention of the two association presidents”, but the first “was placed in pretrial detention pending a postponed adversarial hearing he had requested”, the public prosecutor’s office said.

“My client participated in fundraising efforts for exclusively humanitarian purposes; his detention would be scandalous,” his lawyer, Lucie Simon, told AFP.

The second association president has been placed “under judicial supervision”, the PNAT said.

Neither the locations of the two organizations nor the amounts of money concerned were disclosed.

Lawyers for the other suspects declined to comment to AFP.

The investigation was launched on April 21 into allegations of “terrorist financing and participation in a terrorist conspiracy to commit crimes against persons”.