Kourani received 24.5 million in city and state benefits

Mohamad Thor Jóhannesson, formerly Mohamad Kourani, received subsistence support from the City of Reykjavík for years before moving onto social insurance benefits, mbl.is reports. He was recently deported with a 30-year re-entry ban.

Kourani, who is from Syria, was granted international protection in Iceland in spring 2018. By then, he had already been convicted in Iceland of document-related offences.

Documents obtained by Morgunblaðið show that he received subsistence support from the City of Reykjavík from June 2018 until December 2021, apart from just over a month late in 2018 when he was employed.

In December 2021, he began receiving benefits from the Social Insurance Administration. He received the monthly payments until August 2024, except for several months when he was serving a prison sentence. In total, he received 24.5 million Icelandic krónur from the city and the Social Insurance Administration.

In July 2024, Kourani was sentenced to eight years in prison for a knife attack at OK Market and numerous other offences. The Court of Appeal later upheld the sentence.

Earlier that year, while he was in remand custody in connection with the OK Market case, he was sentenced to 14 months in prison for assault, offences against public authority, making a bomb threat, attempted bomb threats and traffic offences.

In 2022, he was sentenced to 12 months in prison for numerous offences, including assault, trespassing, violating a restraining order, property damage, offences against public authority, bomb threats, document forgery and weapons offences.