How German Taxpayer Money Reached Islamist Networks

Lawyer Seyran Ateş has successfully fought for the release of a review by Germany’s Federal Court of Audit, the Bundesrechnungshof, into state funding for Islamic Relief Germany (IRD). Federal authorities had sought for years to keep its findings under wraps. The partly redacted document has now been published on the website of the Institute for Secular Law.

Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) presents itself publicly as an international humanitarian organization. IRD advertises emergency aid in crisis zones. At the same time, both organizations have for years been suspected of having personnel and ideological ties to the internationally active radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

Seyran Ateş, a lawyer, author and women’s rights activist, persisted in securing the release of a Federal Court of Audit report. Photo: Jens Kalaene/picture alliance via Getty Images

Links to Islamism

The German government itself confirmed as much in 2020 in response to a parliamentary question by the Free Democratic Party (FDP) group in the Bundestag. According to its reply, both Islamic Relief Worldwide and Islamic Relief Germany had significant personnel links to the Muslim Brotherhood or organizations close to it.

The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt, says it is active in more than 70 countries worldwide in the struggle to establish a state governed by sharia law. It is also linked to militant groups such as Hamas in the fight over Palestine. Germany’s domestic intelligence service classifies the movement as extremist. That makes it all the more explosive that German taxpayer money nevertheless flowed to an organization with known Islamist contacts.

Islamic Relief continues to reject links to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Yet the government’s risk assessment, based on intelligence findings, was and remains different. Such concerns were not incidental. They were central to the Federal Court of Audit’s review. Despite that, public money continued to flow for years.

Funding Practice Under Fire

IRD received about €15.2m ($17.7m) from the Foreign Office for humanitarian aid abroad from 2013 onward. A further €965,040 ($1.1m) came from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development or via the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ).

The audit had existed since 2019, but remained under seal on the instructions of the Foreign Office. The redacted version became public only after years of court proceedings, after the Federal Administrative Court reviewed the document confidentially and the parties later reached a settlement.

That outcome was the result of Ateş’s persistence. Her legal success now helps show how a German ministry approved support for an organization even though its extremist environment had been known to German security authorities for years.

More Than Administrative Failure

According to the document, the auditors did not merely criticize isolated failures. They described a broader funding practice that disregarded basic security safeguards. Under its own rules, the Foreign Office should have used the information available to it to assess projects before approving support. It demonstrably failed to do so.

Under the applicable directive, titled “Preventing the Use of State Benefits by Extremist Organizations”, public money must not benefit extremist structures, either directly or indirectly. That is where the Federal Court of Audit’s criticism began. If the state funds an organization whose significant personnel ties to the Muslim Brotherhood were known and later confirmed by the government itself, that is more than a mere administrative mishap. It is a deliberate decision to look the other way.

Taking existing security findings into account should have led to an immediate halt to the grants. Those findings included reports by domestic intelligence authorities as well as United Nations and European Union sanctions lists.

Did German Taxpayer Money Finance Terror?

There is a suspicion that German taxpayer money stabilized Islamist structures, or even financed Islamist terror directly or indirectly. It cannot be proven whether specific amounts reached particular actors or groups. What is documented, however, is that public funds flowed through channels that would be regarded as impermissible under current law.

The Federal Court of Audit found that the relevant circular against the indirect financing of extremist organizations had not been applied.

The role of today’s Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is particularly explosive. During the period under review, he was the minister responsible for the Foreign Office. Grants continued unchecked during his time in office. He therefore bears at least political responsibility for his ministry’s failure to meet essential control duties.

Steinmeier’s Role

There is also a symbolic dimension. In 2013, while serving as Social Democratic Party (SPD) parliamentary leader, Steinmeier attended a charity meal organized by Islamic Relief. In the group’s images and materials, he was presented as a prominent supporter.

Islamic Relief Germany later publicly congratulated him on his election as federal president. That proximity is at least politically sensitive. When a leading federal politician attends events held by such a group, he opens doors, lowers possible reservations and sends a signal to other authorities, partners and donors. Steinmeier thus helped give the organization social legitimacy, even though it had long been the subject of intelligence attention.

Missing Files, Unclear Money Flows

The published document also brings further details to light and criticizes inadequate scrutiny of whether the funds paid out were used economically. IRD’s proof-of-use records are said to have gone unchecked. According to current accounts, money was transferred blindly. The Foreign Office failed to explain in any comprehensible way why it considered IRD a suitable grant recipient despite its own instructions. The auditors therefore criticized not only a political misjudgment, but also administrative failure.

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Whether there was an instruction from the very top can neither be proved nor ruled out. According to the review, warning signs were ignored and no one can show what exactly was financed with the €15.2m ($17.7m) over the years.

There are also indications of poor record-keeping. In connection with Islamic Relief activities in the Palestinian territories, including Gaza, documents on the use of funds are said to have been no longer traceable. Nor can anyone explain why records had disappeared from the file. In an area involving crisis zones, extremist ties and public money, that is a particularly grave finding.

Secrecy in the Federal Government

The secrecy surrounding the review, which was released only after years of legal pressure, raises further questions. The Foreign Office cited intelligence findings and possible conclusions about the services’ methods as grounds for keeping it under wraps. Yet the Federal Administrative Court has now ruled that the document could not remain under blanket secrecy.

Responsibility for keeping the Federal Court of Audit’s criticism from the public also lies with the office-holders of the time. They shielded themselves from uncomfortable questions and prevented scrutiny of the funding practice. SPD politician Frank-Walter Steinmeier was therefore able to leave the Foreign Office entirely unscathed and move into Bellevue Palace as federal president.

A Victory for Transparency

The German government now owes the public an assurance that such a funding policy will not continue. Grants are, for good reason, meant to be awarded only under strict criteria that comply with the free democratic basic order. Without a clear accounting of responsibility, German citizens cannot be expected to understand how such naivety or appeasement toward extremist Islamist connections could have been politically tolerated.

The case reveals a double failure. First, millions flowed to an organization whose environment was regarded as concerning by the domestic intelligence service. Then the audit of that conduct was kept secret for years. The publication of the document is therefore an undisputed success not only for Seyran Ateş, but also for the German public.