COURT CASE: Tina Mohammed, and daughter, Aeisha, outside Teesside Crown Court,in Middlesbrough, yesterday, after Omar Yousef Diab Mohammed admitted four counts of possessing false cheques and false bank statements

A MAN who won compensation from police for being wrongly accused of having international terror links was caught trying to leave the UK with £70m-worth of fake cheques and bank drafts.

Omar Yousef Diab Mohammed was arrested at Durham Tees Valley Airport after a search of his toiletry bag uncovered the "crude and obvious forgeries", a court was told yesterday.

The Jordanian national, who lives in Middlesbrough, was originally accused of attempting to conceal, disguise, convert, transfer or remove criminal proceeds, but the charges were changed.

Yesterday, the 50-year-old part-time interpreter admitted four counts of possessing a false instrument without lawful authority - namely two false cheques and two false bank drafts.

Mohammed was given a six-month prison sentence but walked free from Teesside Crown Court because he had already spent the equivalent time in custody while awaiting trial.

The court was told how Mohammed was stopped at the airport and detained under the 2000 Terrorist Act on October 12 as he travelled to Egypt via Amsterdam with two suitcases.

Shaun Dodds, prosecuting, said the bank drafts and cheques were in a black toilet bag and when Mohammed put it to one side during the search, it roused the suspicion of officers.

When he was asked to account for the false documents, Mohammed, of Manor Wood, Coulby Newham, told the officers: "I'm not getting into trouble for this", before tearing them up.

The documents were patched back together and showed that one of them was a cheque for £220,000 made payable to Mohammed Asali, which had been altered from a small amount.

The rest of the paperwork were forgeries - a Bank of Ireland draft for 50 million euros payable to Zak Yamani, an HSBC draft for 850,000 euros payable to Mr El Sheikh, and an AIB international cheque for 50 million euros payable to a Mr Salami.

Tom Mitchell, mitigating, said Mohammed knew the items were false, but he had acted merely as a document courier - "taking paper from one place to another . . . and running the risk".

In a police interview, Mohammed said he had been asked by a friend a few weeks before his departure for Cairo if he would be prepared to carry the financial documents, said Mr Dodds.

Mohammed spoke to a contact and described the cheques and bank drafts as "very crude" and the values as "ludicrous", but he was branded an idiot and told they were genuine.

Mr Mitchell said Mohammed, who has no previous convictions, was aware the documents were counterfeit and had no intention of using them fraudulently

Judge George Moorhouse said: "You knew they were forgeries, and in fact you even spoke to other people and complained they were worthless documents.

Mohammed was one of six men arrested in an anti-terrorist operation in January 2002 when Durham and Cleveland police officers raided homes and kebab shops in the region.

Five of the men, including Mohammed, were later granted out-of-court cash settlements after they mounted legal action claiming wrongful arrest. All six were released without charge.

The investigation - codenamed Operation Icebolt - was the biggest anti-terrorist swoop in the region, and came in the wake of the September 11 attacks after an anonymous tip-off to police over allegations of money-laundering for Islamic terrorist groups and the buying of weapons.

Durham and Cleveland police forces, who led the raids on homes and kebab shops in Darlington, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool.

Mohammed, a father-of-three, married to Tina, 38, was on his way to Cairo to visit a sick uncle when he was stopped at the airport on October 12 last year.

5:03am Tuesday 13th May 2008

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