Revealed: Top roles held by key members of extremist group which backed October 7 killers – including Hamas apologist who had job at nuclear plant

• Probe found they have worked for major infrastructure firms, investment banks, the NHS and drug companies 

Firebrand members of an extreme Islamic group that celebrated the Hamas terror attack on Israel work at the heart of UK industry, a Mail investigation has found.

A probe of senior members of extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir – including one who praised the Hamas mass murderers as ‘heroes’ – discovered they have worked for major infrastructure firms, investment banks, the NHS, drug companies and even at a nuclear power station.

More than half a million pro-Palestinian protesters are due to take to the streets of London this morning on Armistice Day amid fears it could be marred by outbursts of anti-Semitism that occurred on previous marches.

Those scenes include chants of ‘jihad’ at a protest organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Our probe comes after The Mail On Sunday revealed last month how the UK leader of the group, Abdul Wahid, works as a GP in Harrow, north-west London, under the name Dr Wahid Shaida.

The Mail On Sunday revealed last month how the UK leader of the group, Abdul Wahid, works as a GP in Harrow, north-west London, under the name Dr Wahid Shaida

Wahid described the barbaric October 7 Hamas terror attacks in which 1,400 men, women and children were slaughtered as a ‘very welcome punch on the nose’ to Israel.

Following the attacks, the group held a protest in central London urging Arab states to mobilise their armies against Israel and where there were calls for ‘jihad’ – which led to demands for the police to step in.

It is feared that members may hold another splinter demonstration today.

Last night anti-Semitism campaigners warned Hizb ut-Tahrir’s disturbing rhetoric was ‘deadly serious’ and even more ‘alarming’ because its members had held key roles in UK industry.

These include mechanical engineer Luqman Muqeem who posted on social media in praise of the ‘heroes’ of the Hamas attacks which had ‘made us all very, very happy’. On his now deleted Instagram page, he also said: ‘The heroes of Raza [Gaza] broke through the enemy lines of the yahood [Jews].’

At a conference hosting Hizb ut-Tahrir in July, Muqeem told a crowd that ‘radical change [will] come when Islam knocks down… secularism’, which would ‘bring an end to the Western world order’.

After graduating from Aston University in Birmingham, Muqeem worked for Cubis Systems, which designs and manufactures cable parts used in rail, telecoms, road, water and power industries worldwide. He has since left the company.

Between October 2017 and September 2018, he had a maintenance engineer placement as EDF’s Hartlepool nuclear power station.

He claimed in his CV posted on his LinkedIn page that work at ‘such a prestigious nuclear power station’ had given him ‘deep insight into specific work and nuclear/energy related knowledge’.

He added: ‘Some of my accomplishments include the production of a voids waste inventory sheet, a maintenance inspection in the turbine hall during plant outage and calculations of radioactivity of onsite devices.’

EDF said it was an office-based role for several months with the power station’s environmental monitoring team.

Former Christian turned radical Muslim and key Hizb ut-Tahrir member Jamal Harwood says on his LinkedIn page that he has previously worked as a consultant for major financial firms including Credit Suisse, JP Morgan and RBS. RBS and JP Morgan were unable to confirm because it was so long ago. He describes himself as ‘reporting to managing/board directors, has delivered strategic planning, change management, and information management solutions for several global investment banking and asset management firms over a 23-year career’. The father-of-four most recently said his job was a finance lecturer on a university MBA programme and he was formerly director of his own IT consultancy firm with his wife.

Former Christian turned radical Muslim and key Hizb ut-Tahrir member Jamal Harwood says on his LinkedIn page that he has previously worked as a consultant for major financial firms including Credit Suisse, JP Morgan and RBS. RBS and JP Morgan were unable to confirm because it was so long ago

In an interview posted on the Hizb ut-Tahrir site on October 31, Harwood declined to condemn the October 7 attacks. He also backed the calls for jihad made at the group’s rally a week earlier, saying: ‘I don’t have a problem with that because it’s actually consistent because when we look at the common understanding of jihad it is Muslim army fighting against occupation or oppression. So that was actually a core message.’

He accused politicians of falling in behind the ‘Zionist entity’ which he accused of ‘genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’.

Another prominent Hizb ut-Tahrir member, Rupon Shahid, until March worked as senior business analyst for an external contractor to pharmaceutical company Roche under the name Shahid Haque.

The graduate of the London School of Oriental and African Studies also worked as an analyst at a London NHS trust, according to his LinkedIn page. After the October 7 terror attack he reposted vile comments on Facebook by Ata Abu Rashta, the global leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir, which said Jews ‘persist in cheating, deception, immorality, depravity, cowardice, and humiliation’.

He has also reposted calls for the armies of Muslim countries around Palestine to invade to liberate it from the ‘occupiers, colonisers and treacherous rulers’.

During the Gaza conflict in 2021, he posted comments on Facebook indicating support for the ‘liberation of filistin [Palestine] via jihad’.

A Campaign Against Antisemitism spokesman said: ‘Last month, participants at Hizb ut-Tahrir’s protest in London called for ‘jihad’ under banners urging action by ‘Muslim armies’. Notwithstanding the Met’s comical excuses for its inaction, this rhetoric is deadly serious. We are now calling for the group to be proscribed.

Mechanical engineer Luqman Muqeem posted on social media in praise of the ‘heroes’ of the Hamas attacks which had ‘made us all very, very happy’. On his now deleted Instagram page, he also said: ‘The heroes of Raza [Gaza] broke through the enemy lines of the yahood [Jews].’

‘These posts by associates of Hizb ut-Tahrir are equally alarming, given that they have held positions at universities and in the NHS.’

The Government has faced repeated calls to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, which wants the whole Islamic world to unite under one leader, and for Britain to fall under the rule of that ‘caliph’.

Tony Blair and David Cameron both tried to ban the group, which is proscribed in Germany and several other countries.

Roche said: ‘The individual in question has never been an employee, but was supplied by an external vendor who provided IT services for our company.’ Asked for comment, Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain insisted it had ‘no history of supporting anti-Semitism’ and believed ‘Jews should be dealt with justly as citizens like they were traditionally during the Caliphate’.

‘Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain also believe there is no contradiction in opposing the ongoing genocide in their personal time and with performing their day jobs maintaining turbines, treating the sick and coming up with new medical discoveries,’ it said.

The group added Mr Harwood’s interview ‘covered ‘Jihad’ in the context of State militaries rescuing the people of Gaza from violent occupation’ and said there was no ‘condoning the murder of civilians’.

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