Police arrest "suicide bomber" protester

British Muslims demonstrate outside Danish embassy
By Matthew Jones

Newspaper pictures of Omar Khayam wearing what looked like a suicide bomber's body harness and of protesters carrying placards with slogans such as "Massacre those who insult Islam" had provoked calls for the police to act.

Police said Khayam, who was on parole from prison at the time of the demonstration, was arrested in Bedford for breaching his parole conditions and had been returned to jail.

"He was arrested at the behest of the Home Office," a police spokesman said.

Official sources said the 22-year-old had been released from jail last year after serving part of a sentence for drug dealing.

A Home Office spokeswoman declined to comment on Khayam's case, but said any offender released on licence has to behave or run the risk of being recalled to serve the rest of their sentence.

"Provocative behaviour would be considered a breach," she said.

Khayam, who apologised on Monday for dressing as a suicide bomber, was among a group of protesters at the weekend who urged violence against Westerners over the publication of the cartoons in European newspapers.

Uproar over the cartoons has swept the Muslim world, but the protest in London aroused condemnation from the Muslim Council of Britain which called for the placard-wavers to be prosecuted.

The cartoons, one of which showed Mohammad with a turban resembling a bomb, first appeared in a Danish newspaper and were then reprinted in other countries, although not in Britain.