Tony Blair’s charity under investigation over Brotherhood ties

The religious charity of former British prime minister Tony Blair is being investigated by intelligence organizations MI5 and MI6 after the group was accused of having links to the Muslim Brotherhood, The Telegraph reported Sunday.

The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch, which has been investigating the Islamist group for 13 years, revealed that a member of Mr. Blair’s advisory council, Dr. Ismail Khudr Al-Shatti, is a leading member of the Kuwaiti branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM).

Shatti reportedly told a crowd of Kuwaitis that “Israel is an evil, and we can never live with evil,” according to a news agency report in 2000.

In 1995, it was reported in America that a Palestinian-based terrorist group wrote the Kuwait leader requesting financial support.

The Brotherhood has been declared a terrorist group in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE and could potentially be banned in Britain, despite the UK branch insisting they do not have ties to the extremist factions.

Another Islamic adviser to the former prime minister is Mustafa Ceric, a Bosnian Muslim cleric who has made divisive remarks about Islam in the Balkan states.

The former Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina is linked with the global Muslim Brotherhood network through his membership of the European Council for Fatwa and Research.

The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch says Blair’s relation to the two men jeopardize the work of his charity, The Tony Blair Faith Foundation.

Steven Merley, a U.S. investigator of extremist movements, who runs Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch, told The Sunday Telegraph: "Many groups don’t call themselves Muslim Brotherhood but they are linked to what I call the 'Global Muslim Brotherhood.'"

"These individuals have fooled a lot of politicians, like Blair, who should know better. The very presence of people like Shatti and Ceric in the same room as him is a judgment on Blair."

A spokesman for the Tony Blair Faith Foundation told the paper they were "grateful" for the work done by the pair and described them as "great supporters of the foundation."

The organization said they were not aware of the men's alleged links.

The British branch of the Muslim Brotherhood maintains that it is not an extremist group and threated legal action against those who try to restrict their activities after it was announced the government would investigate the organization.