by Abigail Buchanan and Charles Hymas, Telegraph
With a series of shocking anti-Israel statements to his name, Fahad Ansari has a new client – and is lobbying the government on their behalf
Fahad Ansari, a south-London based solicitor, describes himself as an “immigration and nationality lawyer striving to secure your right to enter and reside in the UK with dignity.” He holds a degree from the University of Galway in International Human Rights Law, and his LinkedIn profile positions him as a leader in his field: it proudly states that he is recommended in The Legal 500 – the guide to the best lawyers and firms in Britain and beyond – and that he has written opinion pieces that have been published in the Guardian newspaper and the New Statesman magazine.
Recently, however, Ansari took on a shocking and highly controversial client: Hamas, the Iranian-backed terrorist organisation responsible for the deadly attacks on Israelis on October 7. Hamas is calling on the UK government to remove it from its list of proscribed terrorist groups by claiming that the ruling breaches the European Convention on Human Right (ECHR).
The Telegraph can reveal that Ansari has apparently made a series of shocking statements regarding the Israel-Gaza conflict on social media over a period spanning years. These include claiming that Hamas is a “legitimate resistance movement” protecting the Palestinian people from “UK-sanctioned genocide” and that it is “more popular than ever before” in the wake of its barbaric attacks on Israel two years ago.