Britain’s biggest Muslim charity, Islamic Relief Worldwide, announced today that an independent audit has cleared it of any terrorist links.
Accusations against the charity were first made by Israel and later by the United Arab Emirates and focused on Islamic Relief’s work in the West Bank. Israel claimed that some of the charity’s funding was filtering through to Hamas which is viewed by Israel as a terrorist group.
In a statement released today, the charity said: “We made the difficult decision to suspend our programmes in the West Bank and commissioned an independent investigation.
“That investigation examined our projects, partnerships, finances and staffing in the West Bank. It looked in great detail at the thorough systems and processes that we have developed over many years to ensure both that our work benefits those in genuine need and that no money gets into the wrong hands.”
According to the charity, the report concluded that “there is absolutely no evidence of any links with terrorism”.
The charity has not publicly revealed which company carried out the audit.
Islamic Relief was founded 30 years ago and works in more than 40 countries. Its work ranges from health and education projects to help with orphans. In 2013, the government gave the charity £3.2m through its international development arm, the Department for International Development (DfID).
A spokesman for DfID told Civil Society News: “Any funding from DfID is subject to rigorous pre-grant due diligence checks and we have strict auditing and monitoring controls in place to ensure all funding is used as it should be.
"We have received a copy of the report that Islamic Relief commissioned and look forward to discussing this with them.”
'Acted appropriately'
A spokeswoman for Charity Commission told Civil Society News: "Islamic Relief Worldwide submitted a serious incident report to us in June. The report explained that the charity had learnt, via news media, that the Israeli Defence Minister had issued a decree banning the charity from Israel.
"The charity explained its response to the designation incident to us, which included launching independent external and internal investigations.
"The trustees have acted appropriately by informing the regulator proactively and promptly, both in relation to the designation and the more recent designation by the United Arab Emirates."
Islamic Relief said the audit’s findings “accord with those of dozens of independent audits conducted each year into our operations in more than 40 countries where Islamic Relief has offices or aid and development programmes – including a rigorous audit of our operations in Gaza in 2013.
“Not one of these many audits over many years has found a shred of evidence that Islamic Relief funds terrorism or has terrorist links anywhere in the world.
“Islamic Relief abhors terrorism in all its forms. We are an impartial, independent, purely humanitarian organisation whose sole focus is to alleviate poverty and suffering,” it said.
