UK law firm advocating for Hamas has history of defending jihadis

Judging from its website, the firm specializes in providing representation to accused Islamists who have run afoul of UK laws regarding terrorism and citizenship.

By Jules Gomes, Middle East Forum

A legal firm that has a history of defending jihadis linked to Islamist terror militias, including Al Qaeda, Islamic State and Taliban, is challenging the UK government’s designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization.

Riverway Law, a London-based firm acting on behalf of Mousa Abu Marzouk, the head of Hamas’s International Relations, submitted an appeal to the Home Office on April 9, demanding Hamas’s “deproscription from the British government’s list of proscribed terrorist groups.”

The controversy has prompted researchers to document pro-Hamas statements issued by the firm’s lead solicitor, Fahad Ansari, who authored the brief in question.

The Brief

In his witness statement, Marzouk called Britain “the architect of our suffering through its collaboration with the Zionist project for over a century,” and argued that by “maintaining its ban” on Hamas, the UK was “in breach of its obligations under international law.”

By proscribing Hamas, Britain is “complicit” in Israel’s “ongoing acts of genocide,” Marzouk said. “Hamas is not a terrorist group,” but “a Palestinian Islamic liberation and resistance movement whose goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project,” he claimed.

Rejecting accusations of antisemitism and targeting of Jews, the statement argued that Hamas’s founding charter, which cites a hadith as a proof text for killing Jews and pledges that Islam will “obliterate” Israel, was “drafted without consultation with the senior leadership” who were imprisoned or exiled at the time.

The law firm’s 106-page application to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper called for the ban to be lifted in accordance with European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) protections for freedom of speech, arguing that Hamas poses “no threat to the UK people.”

It does, represent a threat to the lives of its critics who condemn its policies in Gaza, however. In early April, Hamas was accused of murdering a 22-year-old man, Uday Rabie, who attended an anti-Hamas protest in March.

Gideon Falter, Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, expressed disdain for Hamas’s appeal, stating that it is proof of how desperate the terror organization has become in recent months.

Our initial review of the so-called ‘Hamas case’ is that the submission is amateurish and desperate.

It demonstrates that Hamas is struggling by any means necessary to stay afloat as pressure is brought to bear on the murderous Islamist group. If Hamas is no longer proscribed, it can be funded from the UK.

“It’s a grotesque irony that the case to de-proscribe Hamas is being made as a human rights claim,” Falter lamented. “Yes, a group that has deprived well in excess of a thousand Jews of their lives and two million Gazans of their safety is basing its appeal on human rights.”

A screenshot of Riverway Law’s website, which hosts the legal brief seeking to remove Hamas from the U.K.’s list of proscribed terrorist organizations. Visitors must first acknowledge a disclaimer stating that the site’s content should not be interpreted as supporting any proscribed terrorist groups under the Terrorism Act 2000.

The firm’s clients

Judging from its website, the firm specializes in providing representation to accused Islamists who have run afoul of UK laws regarding terrorism and citizenship.

In a list of notable and reported cases, Riverway reports that in October 2021, it represented an Afghan national who was granted UK residency but later refused entry because the then-Afghan authorities believed him “to be an Islamic extremist and a threat to national security.”

The same list reports that in January 2023, the firm defended a British Pakistani who lost his UK nationality for traveling to Syria to join Al Qaeda. Turkish authorities had jailed the man for joining ISIS. In his defense, Ansari claimed that the man was an aid worker.

In the same month, Riverway Law defended two British Bangladeshis stripped of UK citizenship. The government assessed the defendants as Islamist extremists who traveled abroad “to participate in terrorist activity” and “posed a threat to national security.”

Other alleged clients

Sam Bidwell, a parliamentary researcher and research director at the Adam Smith Institute, has alleged that Riverway Law has defended several accused Islamists over the past few years.

According to a series of posts on X broadcast by Bidwell, the firm, which describes itself as a specialist in “immigration and nationality law,” had challenged the government’s decision to strip a British Bangladeshi man of his UK citizenship for joining Al Muhajiroun, a Saudi Islamist group. The man had previously traveled to Syria in a failed attempt to join ISIS.

Bidwell reports that in October 2022, Riverway unsuccessfully challenged the Home Office’s decision to exclude an Afghan national from the UK after he was assessed by MI5 to be an extremist who posed a risk to national security.

In June 2021, Riverway successfully challenged the Home Office’s decision to refuse citizenship to an Algerian for his links with the Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA), an Algerian Islamist terror outfit, Bidwell alleges.

Bidwell reports that in November 2020, Riverway successfully challenged the British government’s decision to strip a British Pakistani man of citizenship after he traveled to Syria to join ISIS.

The firm has also reportedly defended Muslims accused of sexual crimes, Bidwell reports. According to Bidwell, Riverway successfully challenged the government’s decision to strip Gjin Gjergji of citizenship in August 2023.

The Albanian, convicted of raping a teenage girl, lied about his nationality to obtain citizenship.

In September 2022, Riverway successfully challenged the Home Office’s decision to remove citizenship from a Pakistani man, following his conviction for child rape.

“It is shocking but not surprising that Riverway has brought forward this case. The firm has a history of defending Islamist extremists, often helping them to escape deportation, despite the threat that these individuals pose to national security,” Bidwell, a political commentator for a UK magazine The Critic, told Focus on Western Islamism (FWI).

Bidwell acknowledges that everyone is entitled to representation, but the fact that the firm has so many alleged Islamists as its clients raises serious questions.

“Who is funding this organization? In whose interests do they act? Why are they so happy to take on these cases, despite the reputational risk associated with doing so?” Bidwell asked.

“Clearly, it is not in Britain’s best interest to allow terrorist groups to operate in this country with impunity,” he warned.

Firm’s chief solicitor defends and promotes Hamas

Riverway has triggered further scandal after the Campaign Against Antisemitism exposed its kead solicitor Ansari’s online anti-Israel hate speech.

In his posts on X, Ansari called the beheading of Israeli babies in the October 7 massacre “imaginary” and claimed that the hostage Mia Schem was “safer with Hamas.”

“How long did her period last?” Ansari asked, referring to Ilana Gritzewsky, a 31-year-old hostage who was sexually assaulted during her abduction to Gaza and woke up surrounded by seven gunmen with her shirt pulled up to bare her breasts and her pants pulled down.

Gritzewsky told her abductors she was having her period, which she thinks saved her from worse. Ansari asked his question about her period while retweeting a post that narrated her sexual assault and how the terrorists had pressed her leg onto a motorcycle’s exhaust pipe, causing burns.

“If you believe genocidal Israel is the most moral army in the world, then you should view Hamas as an army of angels,” he posted on X last year.

“This rhetoric is stomach-churning, but it befits a lawyer who represents Hamas,” said Falter from the Campaign Against Antisemitism. “It is ludicrous that someone with views like these is permitted to practice in the legal profession. We will be writing to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.”

Meanwhile, the discovery of Ansari’s hate speech has prompted shadow Justice Secretary, Robert Jenrick, to call for the law firm to be investigated and struck off.

In a letter to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, Jenrick noted “significant questions as to whether Riverway have complied with their obligations under the UK sanctions regime, the SRA’s own published guidance, and broader professional standards expected of solicitors.”

“Fahad Ansari is a practicing solicitor who has been reported to counter-terrorism policing on six occasions. For two decades he has displayed public sympathy for terrorists, from Hamas to the Taliban,” Jenrick tweeted.

Jenrick blasted Ansari for having “publicly eulogized dead jihadists and called for ‘the spirit of jihad’ to be revived in Britain.” He added: “This isn’t legitimate anti-Israel criticism that we respect as free speech.”

Hamas’s military wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, was proscribed by the UK in 2001. In 2021, its political wing, which runs Gaza, was also proscribed.

Riverway Law did not respond to a request for comment.

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