 The controversial Muslim cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed was last night held in a Beirut prison after he was arrested by Lebanon's general security department less than a week after he fled from the UK.
| Even the Lebanese know better than to let this mook run around. |
The preacher was detained after leaving a television station where he said he would not go back to the country that has been his home for 20 years and where his wife and six children live. "I will not return to Britain unless I want to go there as a visitor or as a tourist," he said. "After all these years of being an expatriate I want to come back. I don't want to go back to Britain unless the government announces personally that I am no longer persona non grata."
| "They can mail my welfare checks to me here!" |
Around midday yesterday, Mr Bakri, who had been in hiding from the British media who followed him to Beirut, was surrounded by 10 heavily armed soldiers who were waiting outside the state-sponsored Future TV. Witnesses described how the soldiers flagged down a green Nissan hire car with the cleric and a driver inside. "They stopped the car in the middle of the road," one said. "After a few minutes, Bakri left the car and they put him in an official Range Rover ... When he was arrested, he looked astonished. At first when they stopped him he kept talking on the phone."
| All they needed was the perp walk. |
Last night the Lebanese interior ministry denied that Mr Bakri had been arrested at the request of any other country and said he was being held at general security facilities.
| "We don't need the British to know that this nut is dangerous." |
In a statement, the general security department said: "Following the receipt of security information, the general security is conducting an investigation regarding the situation of the Lebanese Omar Bakri Fistok [his family name] in order to take the appropriate measure." Last night his spokesman, Anjem Choudary, said he understood the cleric had been released by Lebanese officials but that was unconfirmed. "The information I have from the family is that he has now been released," he said. "It was just an informal discussion about the fact that they don't really have a file on him in Lebanon. They wanted to know what his purpose was for coming to Lebanon, how long he was going to stay and what he was going to do. He has not been in Lebanon since he was 17 and he is not wanted there for any crimes."
| "But they're going to hold him anyway -- some talk about 'general principles', whatever that is," said the perplexed lawyer. |
In the Future TV interview, Mr Bakri said al-Qaida did not exist and he did not know anybody who belonged to the organisation. He said he had disbanded al-Muhajiroun because he had been persecuted by the "Zionist" media in Britain and that he had not worked as a preacher since then. "There is no doubt that the London bombings affected my decision in returning to Lebanon," he said. "It was one of the major reasons. I condemn killing of innocent people."
| "But since they're all infidels ..." |
UPDATE: He's Free. EFL:
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Lebanon freed the radical Muslim cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed on Friday, hours after Britain declared he would not be allowed to return to its shores. Lebanon's prosecutor general, Judge Said Mirza, told The Associated Press he ordered Bakri's release after it appeared "that he has not committed any crime and there are no criminal records against him." Mirza added Bakri was a free man.
It was not immediately clear where Bakri was headed after his release from the General Security building in east Beirut. Lebanese newspapers reported that Syria would like Lebanon to hand over Bakri, but this could not be confirmed with the Syrian authorities on Friday - the Muslim sabbath. Bakri, 45, holds Syrian and Lebanese citizenship. |
