Lawyer says proving Kyrgyz defendant’s terror financing intent will be difficult

It may be difficult to prove that a Kyrgyz citizen accused of financing and supporting terrorist activity knew the purpose of the organisation he allegedly funded, his lawyer said after the first hearing in the case, LRT reported.

The Vilnius Regional Court held the first hearing on Monday in the criminal case against Mukhammad Ali Nurkulov, a Kyrgyz citizen who had a temporary residence permit in Lithuania.

“My client has said from the beginning that the money was transferred for charitable purposes, simply to help people who are struggling and living in poor conditions,” lawyer Aušra Ručienė told reporters after the hearing.

She said some of Nurkulov’s statements indicated that he did not know the organisation was considered terrorist. The defence had submitted documents from Kyrgyzstan’s Prosecutor General’s Office and the presidential administration stating that Hamas is not listed as a terrorist organisation in Kyrgyzstan.

“It is necessary to establish that the person who transferred the money knew that it was a terrorist organisation pursuing terrorist aims. I believe that in this case it will be very difficult to prove the subjective element, namely intent and knowledge,” Ručienė said.

According to the lawyer, Nurkulov learned about the organisation to which he had transferred the money after being summoned to the State Security Department and after using the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT.

Nurkulov faces between three and 10 years in prison. The pre-trial investigation was conducted by officers of the Financial Crimes Investigation Service in cooperation with the State Security Department. The case file includes documents and correspondence between the State Security Department and the Migration Department.

Investigators determined that the man, who was born in 1977 and allegedly espoused radical Islamic ideas and supported Hamas, made several transactions from his personal cryptocurrency wallet in the summer of 2025. The money allegedly went to Hamas’s military wing, the Al Qassem Brigades.

The court was told that Nurkulov transferred 84 euros and 83 cents in one transaction and 93 euros and 96 cents in another. He told the court that he had donated the money for humanitarian purposes.

Ručienė said that if the case involved similar sums in other types of offences, the conduct might be considered minor and the investigation could have been terminated before criminal charges were brought. She also referred to a similar terrorism support case that ended in an acquittal at the Lithuanian Court of Appeal in 2014.

During Monday’s hearing, the court read out statements Nurkulov had given during the pre-trial investigation. He told investigators that Israel was doing more harm than Russia, killing children and women in Gaza while people were dying from hunger and lacking water and electricity.

He said he understood that Hamas was a terrorist organisation, but claimed he had provided money for humanitarian aid and to fight Israel. Prosecutor Rimas Juodis said Nurkulov had now changed his testimony and was only formally admitting guilt. The prosecutor therefore opposed ending the case under the abbreviated evidence examination procedure.