Banned cleric's son seeks cash

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The son of a Muslim cleric who is banned from the UK is trying to reclaim £14,400 seized by police at Heathrow.

Abdul Fostock, 25, was stopped by police in October 2006 as he tried to fly to Beirut to visit his father Omar Bakri Mohammed.

Mr Bakri Mohammed was ordered out of the country in 2005 after the 7/7 terror attacks.

London's Southwark Crown Court heard Mr Fostock argue the money was a gift, not the proceeds of crime.

He was carrying £14,420 in a series of envelopes marked: Daddy, mum, sheikh and spending money when he was stopped.

'Father's sins'

Mr Fostock, of Enfield, Middlesex, told officers he received the money from "friends and family" and intended to distribute it as an "Eid present" when reunited with his parents in Lebanon.

But Det Sgt Russell Hughes of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command told an appeal hearing that there are "reasonable grounds to suspect that the money had been intended for the purposes of crime".

An individual travelling with such a large amount of money through the airport with no clear audit trail was bound to arouse suspicion Det Sgt Russell Hughes

In his view the money was properly seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

The three appeal court judges were told that Mr Fostock has no source of income and paid cash for his ticket to Beirut just four days before he planned to travel.

"An individual travelling with such a large amount of money through the airport with no clear audit trail was bound to arouse suspicion," Det Sgt Hughes said.

But Judge Higgins suggested the case may be one of "the sins of the father being visited on the son".

He said to the officer: "Mr Bakri (Mohammed) was a terrorist, ergo his son in carrying this money is assisting him in terrorism."

Mr Bakri Mohammed's home was searched by police in the wake of the 7 July 2005 bombings on London's transport system in which 52 innocent people were killed by four suicide bombers.

The appeal hearing continues.