UK Charity Regulator Opens Formal Inquiry Into Al-Khair Foundation Over Alleged Hamas Ties

Since the Charity Commission confirmed on Friday, August 7, that it had opened a statutory inquiry into Al-Khair Foundation, the case has moved from allegation to formal regulatory action. UK counter-terror police are executing search warrants and a Turkish-based aid worker sits in custody awaiting extradition to New York.

The man at the center of it is Mohammad Yousef Hasna, 45, of Istanbul. He was arrested in the UK last week and is being held pending extradition proceedings to face US charges of conspiring to provide material support to Hamas, according to the Jewish Chronicle. Jamie McDonald, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, alleges Hasna worked directly with Hamas' senior leadership to move money, food and supplies into Gaza under the cover of humanitarian aid.

According to an indictment obtained by the Daily Telegraph and reported by Breitbart, the FBI says it has messages between Hasna and Hamas figures, including Ghazi Hamad, discussing how to use charitable fundraising to bankroll the group. The indictment reportedly refers to what US prosecutors call the "Sham Charity" but names it as Al-Khair Foundation throughout, per the Jerusalem Post's reporting on the Telegraph's document review.

The financial numbers are what turned a single arrest into a regulatory crisis. Al-Khair's gross income nearly doubled after October 7, 2023, rising from roughly £31.28 million to £74.79 million, according to figures cited in both the Breitbart report and the Jerusalem Post. The Charity Commission separately confirmed the charity recorded income of more than £74 million in the financial year ending July 31, 2025, making it one of the largest Islamic charities in Britain.

The Commission's own statement, published on GOV.UK on August 7, says it received a complaint last month alleging the charity and its partners had ties to Hamas and had funded the group. That complaint triggered an assessment, which the regulator has now escalated into a full statutory inquiry, the most serious level of scrutiny it can apply short of referring matters to police.

As part of that escalation, the Commission has issued a legal order restricting Al-Khair's financial transactions, meaning the charity cannot move money without the regulator's prior consent. The Commission says this step reflects "concerns of possible serious risk to charitable funds."

The inquiry's stated scope, per the Commission's own release, is to establish the nature of the charity's links to Hasna, whether trustees carried out proper due diligence on international partners, and whether trustees effectively monitored how funds were used once they left the UK. The Commission is explicit that it cannot investigate criminal matters itself. If it finds evidence of criminal conduct, it will hand that over to police.

That's already happening on a parallel track. Counter Terror Policing London has confirmed its own investigation, including two search warrants executed at addresses in Croydon, south London, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Al-Khair Foundation disputes the characterization that Hasna was its employee. The charity says he works with one of its global partner organizations to help deliver aid, not directly for Al-Khair itself. In a statement carried by both the Jewish Chronicle and Jerusalem Post, the charity said it is "cooperating fully" with the inquiry and had already filed a serious incident report with the Commission before the statutory inquiry was even opened. "Everywhere we work, we are firmly committed to ensuring that the funds entrusted to us by our generous donors are used for their intended purpose," the charity said, pointing to its work delivering food parcels, hot meals, clean water, medical aid, shelter materials and orphan support in Gaza.

That defense deserves to be taken seriously on its own terms. Distinguishing between a charity's direct staff and the staff of partner organizations it funds is a real distinction in how international aid works, and plenty of legitimate NGOs rely on local partners they don't directly employ. Whether that distinction holds up here is exactly what the Commission's inquiry and the US criminal case are supposed to determine, and neither has reached a conclusion.

Breitbart's report adds a detail the other outlets frame more cautiously: that Al-Khair used Britain's Gift Aid tax relief scheme to claim back roughly £9 million in tax over the past five years, and that the charity has worked with the British government on projects including one aimed at combating anti-Muslim hate. Breitbart also quotes Matt Goodwin, a Reform UK-aligned academic, arguing that "suicidal empathy" in British institutions lets groups funnel state-subsidized money to Islamist causes.

None of this amounts to a conviction. Hasna faces US charges that are, as of now, unproven allegations awaiting extradition and trial. The Charity Commission's inquiry is a fact-finding process, not a verdict on Al-Khair's trustees. What's concrete: a legal freeze on the charity's transactions, two police search warrants in Croydon, and a criminal case in New York that will test whether the FBI's messages and financial trail hold up in court.