Muslim Brotherhood chief linked to Hamas funding tracked down to north-west London address
Living in Willesden, north-west London, Mahmoud Al-Abyari has denied funding Hamas and dismissed the US sanctions against him as 'false' and 'without proof'
One of the Muslim Brotherhood’s most senior leaders, accused by the US of funnelling cash to Hamas through two sham charities, has been found living in north-west London, just a few minutes away from a busy synagogue and two Jewish primary schools.
Neighbours in Willesden, north-west London, know Mahmoud Al-Abyari as a softly-spoken, bespectacled old man living on the corner of a leafy avenue, according to the Mail on Sunday.
But most residents are unaware that Abyari has been identified by the United States as the Secretary-General of the Muslim Brotherhood General Secretariat. According to the US Treasury, he has played an important role in raising and transferring money to Hamas.
The 74-year-old dual Egyptian-Austrian national, who has lived in Britain for decades, has denied funding Hamas and dismissed the US sanctions against him as “false” and “without proof.”
Jewish News twice approached his £1.2 million home on Sunday to speak with Al-Abyari, but nobody responded to the front door bell.
Land Registry records confirm that the three-bedroom house was bought by the Nile Valley Trust in 2004 for £360,000.
The Trust’s address in nearby Cricklewood, north London, has repeatedly been identified as a base for senior members of the exiled Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, with claims it is actually the organisation’s UK headquarters.
However, the organisation—which is banned in the US—has left little trace of its existence in the UK and has no functioning website to reveal its leadership.
Last week, a Mail on Sunday photographer captured Al-Abyari leaving the property, despite his earlier claim to a reporter via WhatsApp that he was too ill to talk.
The revelation that Al-Abyari remains free to move around London despite US sanctions is likely to raise concerns in the Jewish communities of Willesden, Cricklewood, Dollis Hill, and Brondesbury Park.
One local told Jewish News: “I actually walk to shul on the road where this man has been living. It’s a very mixed area, and thankfully, despite the tensions of the last few years, people still largely get along.
“But it hardly inspires confidence knowing that a man accused of being one of the most senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders—and of fund-raising for Hamas—is living here.”
The US Treasury has described Al-Abyari as “a United Kingdom-based senior leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, a group designated as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in January 2026.”
It states that Al-Abyari fundraised for two Turkish charities, Filistin Vakfi and Hayat Yolu, both previously banned by the US for raising money for Hamas.
The Treasury added that Al-Abyari “worked with Muslim Brotherhood groups to support and provide financial assistance to Hamas.”
Al-Abyari has worked to cultivate his image as a senior Muslim commentator, regularly giving interviews to Arab satellite channels from London on topics ranging from Palestine to Middle Eastern politics.
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Egyptian imam and schoolteacher Hassan Al-Banna, with the ultimate aim of uniting the Islamic world under a single caliphate governed by sharia law.
Its one-time Palestinian leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founded Hamas in 1987 as an offshoot of the Brotherhood.
The Muslim Brotherhood is banned in Egypt and several other Arab countries, and there have been repeated calls over the years to ban it in the UK.
Donald Trump banned several of its branches in January.
In response to confirmation that Al-Abyari was living in north-west London, Robin Simcox, the Government’s former Commissioner for Countering Extremism, said: “The US government has shown a greater willingness to take action against the Muslim Brotherhood than we have. The Muslim Brotherhood’s ethos is a direct challenge to our democratic values. We can no longer serve as a refuge for them and their activists.”
Under David Cameron’s premiership, the UK conducted a review of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2015 but chose not to proscribe the group.
Sir John Jenkins, the former UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and Charles Farr, the director-general of the Office for Security and Counterterrorism in the Home Office at the time, conducted the review.
Jenkins concluded that “for the most part, the Muslim Brotherhood have preferred non-violent incremental change on the grounds of expediency”. He said they were “prepared to countenance violence — including, from time to time, terrorism — where gradualism is ineffective”.
Responding to the allegations against him Al-Abyari said:”This is a false accusation and I already made an appeal against this accusation.”