Britain’s charity watchdog said on Thursday it had frozen the accounts of Crescent Relief as part of a probe into allegations that the charity was linked to a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners. The Charity Commission said in a statement that “a formal inquiry has been launched into the charity Crescent Relief and its bank accounts frozen” in the wake of the allegations. London’s Metropolitan Police, which is leading the probe into the alleged conspiracy to put suicide bombers on US-bound planes, declined to comment on the statement or even to say whether it was investigating Crescent Relief. But Kenneth Dibble, director of the watchdog’s Legal and Charity Services, said his commission was “working with law enforcement agencies to get to the bottom of allegations of possible terrorist abuse of Crescent Relief funds”.The Charity Commission said last Saturday it was evaluating media reports of links between the charity and the alleged conspiracy to blow up US-bound planes. The Times newspaper said Saturday that Crescent Relief, which mobilised for the October 8 earthquake in Pakistan, was founded in 2000 by Abdul Rauf, the father of Rashid Rauf, who is being held in Pakistan over the plot. His other son Tayib Rauf was arrested in the central city of Birmingham in an August 10 dragnet in Britain when police arrested a total of 24 suspects in London, outside the capital and Birmingham. Tayib Rauf was not among 11 people charged in London this week, but he remains among nine others still being held by police for questioning.
Pakistani officials said last week that they had also detained Abdul Rauf, 52, at Islamabad airport. The Times said that Crescent Relief might prove links between the Rauf family and the five people arrested in High Wycombe, northwest of London, on August 10. The Times said the charity was operating in High Wycombe when all five suspects were helping with the earthquake relief effort.