An English court has convicted an ex-Hamas bodyguard for attacking a bailiff collecting unpaid parking fines with a knife outside the former’s home in the suburb of Kings Heath in south Birmingham, the BBC reported on Saturday.
The convict’s links to Hamas, or his work from 2006 to 2008 as a bodyguard to the terrorist organization’s then-leader Ismail Haniyeh, were not known to the jurors during the trial.
During his detention, German authorities informed the U.K. that he had been under surveillance over his alleged part in plotting a shooting attack against members of the Jewish community in the Federal Republic, thwarted by a tip-off from the Mossad, according to the BBC.
Mohammed Alfatih, previously known as Mohammed Naim, is the son of former Hamas health minister Bassem Naim, the report read.
Before arriving in Britain in 2015 following an asylum request, he spent time in Malaysia, Qatar and Turkey. Alfatih, 40, became a British citizen in 2021.
A majority of the jury found him guilty of wounding Bailiff Kevin Bucknall, who sustained cuts to his head and was admitted to the hospital.
A father of four and an information technology worker, Alfatih was seen in footage during the trial chasing after the bailiff with a knife and smashing a window of a van on Oct. 14, 2025.
The bailiff came to his residence to repossess his wife’s vehicle, the report said. Alfatih’s wife accumulated debt of more than £2,250 ($2,970) in connection to unpaid parking fines.
The report said that the victim “was involved in a struggle” inside Alfatih’s home after he clamped the wife’s car.
Alfatih told the jurors he chased the bailiff outside to scare him away.
He added that the incident took place a day after he had learned one of his brothers had been killed in Gaza.
Alfatih is expected to be extradited to Germany, his place of birth, after the Birmingham Crown Court sentences him on Jan. 11, according to the BBC.
The BBC cited a government source saying it was “staggering” that he was granted asylum and later given citizenship.
The report quoted a Home Office spokesperson condemning “those who choose to support its [Hamas’s] activities and further its aims.”
