A 34-year-old Singaporean man was charged on Monday with terror financing for providing money to support a terrorist group overseas, according to a media report.
Ahmed Hussein Abdul Kadir provided two payments of about SGD 1,145 (INR 59, 574) in 2016 to an individual overseas who was "facilitating terrorist acts", the Straits Times reported, citing a statement from the Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
The first payment of SGD 1,059 took place on July 29, 2016, while the second payment of SGD 86 was on September 3 that same year.
Providing money in support of terrorist purposes, regardless of the amount, is a serious offence under the Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act, the MHA said.
Hussein, a former information technology engineer, had been detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) since August 2018.
He was also issued with a detention order for being radicalised and for intending to undertake armed violence overseas in support of the terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
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MHA said the detention order against Hussein will be cancelled if he is convicted, and he will serve the prison term imposed by the court.
In such a case, he will be held separately to prevent him from spreading his radical ideas to other inmates and continue to undergo rehabilitation while serving his prison sentence, the paper reported the statement as saying.
"An assessment will be made at the end of his sentence whether he has been successfully rehabilitated or remains a threat to society.
"If he remains a threat, he may be detained further under the ISA," the Ministry said.
In a statement last September (2018), the ministry said Hussein's radicalisation had started in 2013, after he went online for religious knowledge and followed the lectures of several foreign radical ideologues.
"They include Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an Al-Qaeda ideologue who was killed in 2011 by a United States drone strike in Yemen, and several other foreign clerics who have been arrested or jailed for inciting violence or espousing support for terrorism," the statement said.
Hussein grew to believe that the use of violence in the name of religion was justified and by late 2016, was convinced that he should fight and die as a martyr for ISIS in the terror group's self-proclaimed caliphate in the Middle East, the ministry said in it's statement last year.
In its release on Monday, the ministry said terrorism and its financing are a grave threat to both domestic and international security, and global action is needed to deprive terrorist groups of funding and materials.
Anyone convicted of providing property and services for terrorist purposes may be jailed up to 10 years and fined up to SGD 500,000.
In a separate case in April this year, 35-year-old Imran Kassim was charged in the court with terror financing, having provided money to support ISIS' propaganda efforts.
The Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act was updated last year, with harsher penalties for individuals and corporations with a high level of culpability in not reporting terrorism-financing offences, the paper reported.
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