The trust behind a Christchurch mosque says it has been treated unfairly over claims of financial impropriety.
Linwood Islamic Charitable Trust treasurer Abdul Aziz. Photo: RNZ/ Conan Young
Last week an unnamed complainant went to the local paper accusing the Linwood Islamic Charitable Trust of a lack of transparency around its financial accounts.
A complaint had also been laid with Charities Services over the trust's late filing of its financial accounts.
The trust said they had nothing to hide and were hurt by the allegations.
One of the claims was that the trust's treasurer Abdul Aziz was somehow involved in arranging to pay himself a $5000 gift, as a thank you for saving his fellow worshippers on 15 March.
Aziz, who was thanked by Justice Mander during the gunman's sentencing for his bravery, chased the shooter and threw one of his guns at his windscreen.
Aziz showed RNZ a video of the moment he was handed the money at a public function.
"I wasn't aware of that. But the brothers and things they gave me that thanksgiving and you saw the video yourself, the mayor was there, all government delegates was there, the police commissioner, the doctors ... we had a thanksgiving day and it's been given to me on that day in front of everybody."
The dinner was a thank you to first responders and all of those who had helped the Christchurch Muslim community.
It happened a month after the shootings and was attended by the mayor and government minister Megan Woods.
Faisal Sayed, who organised it and was seen in the video handing over the money to Abdul Aziz, said none of the trustees were paid for the work they did for their mosque and their only motivation was to help their fellow Muslims.
"The whole idea was to bring everybody together and share his story and say those magical words of thank you to them. The whole story, I suppose, is quite misleading. It has got a lot of strength to divide the community. It is disappointing and disheartening that we were not approached because we would have been quite transparent as we have always been transparent in our approach."
Trust chair Ahmed Jahangir, who continued to struggle with an injury from the shootings, said the past 18 months had been challenging.
As well as having to replace their treasurer who was one of seven to lose their lives at the Linwood mosque, they had to deal with the challenges thrown up by Covid-19.
Linwood Islamic Charitable Trust chair Ahmed Jahangir. Photo: RNZ / Simon Rogers
He said this explained why they were one month late with filing their annual return to Charities Services.
"Yes, we are late in submitting our annual returns. But we are in the process of submitting it. Our accountants are at the stage of working on our annual returns and in a due course of time it will be submitted to the charity services."
Jahangir said Charities Services had not launched a full-scale investigation into the trust.
Instead, he said they were conducting a much lower level inquiry, involving an exchange of emails, rather than formal interviews with trust members.
Jahangir said the trust had nothing to hide.
"I'm bit surprised that someone from the community or someone else hasn't approached us before for an answer and straight away, went to the media and raised questions, which is quite shocking. And yeah, it should have happened in a different way. They could have come and spoken to us and we could have given them an answer."
Charities Services said it had received information about the trust which it was currently assessing and it would be engaging with the trust.