Released terrorism suspects have been rearrested

Seven of the eight Syrians arrested earlier this month on suspicion of financing a terrorist group, only to be then released, have been redetained under a different process, the Cyprus Mail confirmed on Monday.

The suspects, seven men and one woman, all Syrian nationals residing in Cyprus, had been arrested in the Limassol and Paphos districts on suspicion of funding a terrorist organisation in Syria.

They had been remanded in police custody for six days for questioning. When the remand expired, police did not request a renewal and the suspects were released on October 17. No charges were pressed. At the time of their arrest, police said there was no indication that they had planned any terrorist acts in Cyprus or elsewhere.

But seven of the eight individuals were subsequently detained on the strength of a detention order issued by an immigration officer, the Cyprus Mail has learned. They are being held in a detention centre. This is under a separate process from the earlier court proceedings that had placed them in police custody.

It was not immediately clear for how long the seven may be detained under this current process.

The one individual who was let go is reportedly a 45-year-old Syrian man who holds Cypriot citizenship.

Sources confirmed that the initial probe into suspected terrorist financing is still ongoing. CID leads the investigations.

Over the weekend, Phileleftheros broke the news that seven of the eight Syrians had been re-detained on the orders of the migration department. The paper said that “a detention and deportation order” had been issued for the seven. The complication, however, is that they cannot be deported back to the Syria, as the country is not deemed ‘safe’.

But the detention order allows authorities to keep them in custody while investigations continue.

According to Phileleftheros, one of the eight persons originally arrested, a 44-year-old Syrian man, is the key person of interest in the investigations. He is believed to be the local ‘treasurer’ or point man for collecting cash in Cyprus and transferring it to Syria.

The paper said the man would cross into the north of Cyprus where he’d use an informal transfer system known as Hawala to send funds to Syria. Popular in the Middle East, Hawala is an alternative remittance channel that exists outside of traditional banking systems.

The 44-year-old would reportedly transfer to Syria the equivalent of €50,000 a week. As reported earlier, Cypriot police suspect that at least part of the money was being raised through trade in narcotics.

The daily also named the terrorist organisation that purportedly is the ultimate recipient of the remittances from the north of Cyprus. The group is thought to be Hayat Tahrir al Sham or HTS, formerly known as Al Nusra or the Nusra Front, affiliated to al Qaeda. The HTS group is currently concentrated in Idlib in the northwest of Syria.

HTS has a different agenda and ideology to the Islamic State (Isis). The former has a more localised focus, while the latter intends to establish an ‘Islamic Caliphate’.