The Charity Commission has today issued a terrorism alert reminding organisations of their legal responsibilities after investigations found charity assets in terrorist hands.
It said that the alert had been issued “following a small number of recent cases” where charity “goods and funds” have ended up in the possession of "proscribed terrorist groups overseas".
No charity has yet been prosecuted because it was not in the public interest to do so.
The Commission has collaborated with the police's National Terrorist Financial Investigations Unit and the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command to raise awareness of trustees’ duty to comply with the Terrorism Act.
What the law says
Section 19 of the Act stipulates that if, during the course of their employment someone “believes” or “suspects” another person of committing an offence under section 15 to 18 of the Act, which are terrorist financing offences, they need to report it as soon as possible.
For the purposes of the law employment includes volunteering. People can report concerns to the National Crime Agency website, the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorism Hotline (0800 789 321) or at a local police station.
Incidents should also be reported incidents to the Commission under its serious reporting framework.
In a statement the Commission said: “The intended use or diversion of charitable funds for terrorist purposes is completely unacceptable and undermines public trust and confidence in charities.
“This will be treated as evidence of misconduct and mismanagement in the administration of a charity. Counter-Terrorism legislation is in place to enable law enforcement to tackle abuse and negligence where it exists and where charities or individuals have acted intentionally or irresponsibly.”
Recent cases
The Commission said that in the recent cases it had dealt with, which were subsequently dealt with by the counter-terrorism police, “there was no indication that the charities involved had knowingly allowed their assets to be used for terrorism” but that while they had internal processes for reporting losses these “did not include reporting such instances to a ‘constable’”.
Police said that in one case the delay between the loss being raised internally and being reported to the police constituted an offence under section 19 of the Terrorism Act, but it did not prosecute because it was not in the public interest to do so.
The full alert can be read on the Commission’s website.
