A teenage ISIS member has been jailed for life for plotting to kill soldiers and police officers in the UK.
Matthew King, 19, carried out reconnaissance on police stations, railway stations and an army barracks before he was arrested.
He discussed his plans and shared a "gory fantasy" with an online girlfriend with whom he struck up an adolescent flirtation, the Old Bailey criminal court in London heard.
In one message he said “I just want to get my hands on an American marine or British marine” and expressed a desire to “die a martyr”.
While in custody, King made violent threats to "behead“ and "kill and chop up staff".
King also searched online for ISIS knife tactical training videos and made notes on his phone about detonating homemade bombs.
Prosecutor Paul Jarvis said King had developed an "entrenched Islamist extremist mindset".
In his early teens, King "dabbled with drugs" and was expelled from school after becoming aggressive, eventually leaving education entirely at the age of 16.
Some time in 2020 he became interested in Islam, began to attend mosques and watched Muslim videos on YouTube.
By May 2021, his family noticed he had become more extreme and his mother became concerned that he was watching material online promoting hatred, Mr Jarvis said.
His desire to launch attacks in Britain or travel to Syria to join ISIS were thwarted when she reported him to the UK’s Prevent counter-terrorism programme.
Authorities were also tipped off through an anti-terrorist hotline after he posted a video on a WhatsApp group holding a knife and he was arrested in May last year.
After pleading guilty earlier this year he has now been handed a life sentence with a minimum term of six years, in the first terrorism sentencing in England and Wales to be televised.
Judge Mark Lucraft KC praised King's mother, saying: "She took the very bold step of alerting Prevent when she had concerns for her son.
“That cannot have been an easy thing to do in the first place and in my view she did absolutely the right thing."
His defence lawyer, Hossein Zahir, described King as immature and said the prospects that he would have carried out a terrorist attack or travelled to Syria to join ISIS were remote.
After the sentencing, Scotland Yard described King as a "committed, self-initiated terrorist" who became "self-radicalised" online during the Covid pandemic lockdown.
Its head of anti-terrorism, Commander Dominic Murphy, said: “I genuinely believe this was an imminent terrorist attack.”
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Nancy 9 (Hassa Beek)
Nancy Ajram
(In2Musica)
How Islam's view of posthumous transplant surgery changed
Transplants from the deceased have been carried out in hospitals across the globe for decades, but in some countries in the Middle East, including the UAE, the practise was banned until relatively recently.
Opinion has been divided as to whether organ donations from a deceased person is permissible in Islam.
The body is viewed as sacred, during and after death, thus prohibiting cremation and tattoos.
One school of thought viewed the removal of organs after death as equally impermissible.
That view has largely changed, and among scholars and indeed many in society, to be seen as permissible to save another life.
