The charities watchdog issued a warning about the “independence” of a British charity over its links to a Qatari group later listed as a terrorist organisation by its Gulf neighbours.

Qatar Charity UK hands out millions of pounds to mosques and other organisations across Britain. 

The regulator intervened four years ago after it discovered that 98 per cent of the body’s funding was coming from Doha-based Qatar Charity Qatar (QCQ), with the UK body funding projects “identified by QCQ”.

The watchdog also expressed concern that all of the UK charity’s trustees in 2015 were linked to the QCQ. Three were paid by the Doha-based body. QCQ was one of a dozen organisations Saudi Arabia and its allies claimed were involved in terrorism in 2017. 

Qatar Charity UK changed its name later that year to the Nectar Trust. But accounts show it received £28m from QCQ in 2017, before donations dropped sharply. 

The Charity Commission report also points out that the Israeli government banned QCQ as it was alleged to be part of the Union of Good “reported to provide support to Hamas”.

The Charity Commission stated that its "main sources of concern" included that "in 2014 the Charity received £451,605 (98 per cent) of its income from the Qatari-registered charity Qatar Charity Qatar (‘QCQ’) and three of the seven trustees of the Charity are directors or employees of QCQ. The Commission’s records indicate that the remaining four trustees are also linked with QCQ as their registered addresses were that of QCQ." There were also concernes about "allegations linking QCQ to terrorist financing".