A South African man, Ziyadh Hoorzook, is set to be released from remand prison after a court has approved and granted his bail application at $1,616 (Approximately 30,000 rands) in the court of Lichtenburg. The accused faces a criminal lawsuit for sending Bitcoin (BTC) over $600 (Approximately 11,1182.28 rands) to an associate of terrorist organization Islamic State in Syria.
As reported by the Bitcoin News, the magistrate has remarked that the state did not have proper evidence against Hoorzook, so he has postponed the case till 3rd March, 2025. According to South African authorities, Hoorzook had made payments in BTC to a certain organization in Syria that had ties with the ISIS.
However, Hoorzook has refused the claims saying that he was unaware that the Syrian charitable organisation was having a connection with the terrorist when he donated the Bitcoin to the organization named ‘Al Sadaqah’ in the year 2017. He said that he thought it was a charitable organization. He further added that he intended to help the people in Syria as there was mass scale human rights violation against them at that time.
He also said that he found al-Sadaqah to be the most convenient organization to donate at that time because of it being promoted by several Islamic figures who claimed that the organization was directly receiving and distributing the donated amount.
However, South African police investigating officer, Warrant Officer John Sithole, said “The state’s case was watertight.”
He further highlighted that they had found a significant amount of information from Hoorzook’s electronic devices like the videos, images, and articles that promoted violence as well as speeches by former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and even advertisements of al sadaqah that proved that he was aware that the organization named al-Sadaqah was helping to fund terrorist organisations.
According to the officer, the information on Hoorzook’s electronic devices states that al-Sadaqah is not a charity organisation and Hoorzook was aware that the funds he denoted would be used for terror activities.
However, the South African government views this as an important case for South Africa’s efforts to be removed from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list.
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