The Al-Rayan Bank has been found to provide services to a US-banned charity associated with terrorism

Tuesday 06 August, LONDON - Britain's oldest and largest Islamic bank controlled by the Qatari state is reportedly working with organisations linked to Islamists. 

Al Rayan, which has branches in London's Knightsbridge, has been found to provide services to a US-banned charity associated with terrorism, and a mosque with links to Hamas. 

Al Rayan Bank in Knightsbridge, London

The bank's chief executive, Sultan Choudhury, was also the unpaid director of a religious institute who had alumni and speakers that openly advocated the death penalty for adultery and child marriage. 

The bank's customers include Peace TV's funding arm, which said gay people are worse than pigs and magicians should be executed.

Based in Dubai, it showed programmes which breached Ofcom regulations on inciting crime, hate speech and abuse and was based on Islamic teachings.

The regulator said one show - called Strengthening Your Family - The Valley of the Homosexuals - made reference to homosexual people dying 'from a disease they contracted because they are homosexual' and said homosexuality was 'a very unnatural type of love that is energised by the influence of (Satan)'. 

Finsbury Park Mosque was also a customer, whose trustee was a leader of Hamas and had links with terrorism in the West Bank.

Accounts were also held by Hhugs, which is a notorious group that funds terrorists' families, including Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, an Islamic State fighter whose father Adel is a convicted terrorist linked to Osama Bin Laden.

Further account holders were linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, and four groups that bank with Al Rayan are being investigated by the charity Commission.