A Black Lives Matter (BLM) activist who organized a 2020 riot in which a historic statue was torn down and cast into a harbor has pleaded guilty to fraud, after some £30,000 (~$37,000) in donations disappeared.
Xahra Saleem, formerly Yvonne Maina, co-founded the All Black Lives (ABL) Bristol group in the United Kingdom, and raised money ostensibly to provide masks for BLM protesters and fund a trip to Africa for poor youths via a GoFundMe page called BristBLM. A court heard this week, however, that she “dishonestly abused [her] position intending to make a gain, namely used the funds raised for [herself].”
Saleem, who attended court with her face almost entirely obscured by an Islamic face veil, was also hit with a charge related to a ‘Bristol Protesters Legal Fees’ fundraising page, set up in the wake of a BLM riot in which a statue of Edward Colston, a merchant and parliamentarian once hailed as a great philanthropist, was ripped down over his then-unremarkable ties to the slave trade, considered legitimate in both Europe and Africa when he was born in the 1600s.
Saleem will return to court for sentencing on October 31st.
WATCH:
Statue of Slave Trader Edward Colston Pulled Down and Thrown into Harbour by Protesters in UK pic.twitter.com/xlhRh1lG0t
— Fars News Agency (@EnglishFars) June 8, 2020
Saleem will return to court for sentencing on October 31st.