Murdered British MP had Middle East ties, including to Iranian opposition

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – The congenial and well-liked Conservative Party member of the British parliament, Sir David Amess, who was murdered on Friday, was active on two issues related to the Middle East.

Amess was Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary British-Qatar Group, which seeks to promote relations between the UK and Qatar. In fact, he had just returned from a visit to Qatar.

Amess was also Co-chair of the British Committee for Iran Freedom (BCFI.) As its website explains, the BCFI aims to promote a secular democracy in Iran.

The BCFI regularly condemns Tehran’s repression of its own people, including of the Kurds. Indeed, last month, the BCFI issued a statement strongly criticizing Iranian rocket and mortar attacks on Iranian Kurds who had taken refuge in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region.

The Assassin and his Background

Amess was murdered by a 25-year-old Briton with a Somali background: Ali Harbi Ali. Born in the UK, Ali is the oldest of the four children of Harbi Ali Kullane, who had been director of communications for a former Somali prime minister Omar Sharmarke, who now lives in Kenya.

Ali’s family is prominent in Somali politics, and an uncle, Awale Kullane, is Somalia’s ambassador to China.

Harbi Kullane moved to Britain in the 1990s, where, in 1996, Ali was born. Raised in south London, he attended a local Church of England primary school, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Ali’s parents separated while he was still young, and his father then split his time traveling among Britain, Somalia, and Kenya.

As director of communications for the western-backed government in Mogadishu,  Kullane was involved in counter-messaging against al-Shabaab, the Islamic extremist group active in Somalia.

Kullane’s hard line against the terrorist group prompted death threats against him from al-Shabaab and its sympathizers, the Telegraph reported.

Thus, it is notable that Kullane’s son would embrace the ideology of Islamic terrorist groups, and one is tempted to ask, if there was something in the relationship between Ali and his father that drove Ali’s embrace of such views.

British authorities have said that Ali appears to have acted alone: a so-called “lone wolf” who self-radicalized. They speculate that the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdowns exacerbated the problem, causing him to spend more time online.

Kullane, who is cooperating with police, told the London Sunday Times of his shock at learning of his son’s action. “I’m feeling very traumatized,” he said. “It’s not something that I expected or even dreamt of.”

Ali had earlier come to the attention of British authorities for extremist Islamic tendencies and had been referred to a government de-radicalization program, known as Prevent.

However, there are a huge number of such individuals in Britain. In one year alone—between March 2019 and March 2020—over 6,000 people were referred to that program, the Sunday Times reported.

But Ali was not under the watch of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency (MI-5), which monitors individuals who are considered a more serious and immediate threat. That number is also large: 3,000 people.

Amess Middle East Ties: His own Constituency, Qatar, and Iran

Amess’ relations with the Middle East begin with his own constituency, which lies east of London and includes two mosques. Following Amess’ murder, leaders from both mosques expressed their sadness at his death and great appreciation of his work.

Amess was Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary British-Qatar Group, which promotes good relations between the UK and Qatar. In fact, last week, he visited Qatar, where he met the Amir, who has responded to his death by tweeting his condolences.

We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of Sir David Amess MP and chairman of @QatarAPPG. We remember with great appreciation his efforts to advance the historic relations between our two nations. Our sincerest condolences to his family, friends and the British people.

— تميم بن حمد (@TamimBinHamad) October 15, 2021

“It remains unclear” why Amess “was targeted,” The Independent reported. “Police are following several lines of enquiry, including his leadership of the all-party group on Qatar.”

Indeed, “Police examine Qatar link over killing of MP” is the lead story on Monday in The Times.

Although speculation in the British press has focused on a connection to Qatar, a link to Iran would seem equally, if not more, plausible, particularly as the Iranian regime has a long history of conducting assassinations abroad, as detailed in this timeline from the US Institute of Peace.

Amess was a prominent critic of Iran. He was Co-chair of the British Committee for Iran Freedom (BCFI). The work of the organization, dedicated to establishing a democratic system in Iran, includes the highlighting of Tehran’s repression of the Kurds.

Indeed, last month BCFI issued a statement strongly condemning “the regime in Iran for firing rockets and shelling areas accommodating Iranian refugees and Kurdish groups in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.”

Thwarting Ebrahim Raisi’s Attendance at the Glasgow Climate Summit

Initially, Iran’s new hard-line president, Ebrahim Raisi, who was elected in August, was slated to attend the world climate summit, Cop26, to be held, starting Oct. 31, in Glasgow, Scotland.

But a group of UK activists, led by Struan Stevenson, a Scottish politician, who represented Scotland in the European parliament from 2009 to 2014, called on the British and Scottish governments to arrest Raisi, if he attended the Cop26 conference.

Raisi responded by canceling his plans to attend the summit, which was supposed to be his first overseas visit.

Shortly before Amess died—indeed the day before—he published an article in the conservative US website, Townhall, titled “Reverse a Pattern of Appeasement by Arresting Iran’s Genocidal President.”

Amess put forth a legal basis for Raisi’s arrest: “the principle that allows for severe violations of human rights to be prosecuted by any legal authority, even if the crimes actually took place in another jurisdiction.”

He reviewed Raisi’s history of “severe human rights violations,” including “the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners, mostly members and supporters of the main opposition, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), in the summer of 1988.”

Some 30 years later, as Amess wrote, Raisi “assumed leadership of Iran’s judiciary upon the order of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.” He “oversaw key aspects of the crackdown on the nationwide uprising of November 2019, which saw 1,500 peaceful protesters killed in a matter of days, after which thousands of arrestees were subjected to torture over a period of several months.”

Amess cited Sweden’s arrest of Hamid Noury, who had helped “to carry out many of the executions that comprised the 1988 massacre.”

Noury is now on trial in a Swedish court.

“If this principle applies to Noury’s case,” Amess continued in his Townhall article, “then it certainly applies to that of Ebrahim Raisi, whose role in the 1988 massacre was much larger and whose subsequent human rights abuses have been much more shocking and escalatory.”

The following day, Amess was murdered—a crime celebrated in Iran’s official, state-run media, which detailed his dealings with the Iranian opposition.