'Suicide bomb' protester jailed for parole breach

Published on Tuesday 7 February 2006 14:02

THE man who dressed as a suicide bomber during protests against the Mohammed cartoons was today arrested and taken back to prison for breach of parole.

Omar Khayam, 22, was pictured outside Denmark's embassy in London wearing a simulated suicide bombing outfit to denounce the cartoons, first published in a Danish paper, satirising Islam's prophet Mohammed.

The student was given six years in prison in 2002 for possessing crack cocaine with intent to supply and is still on licence after being released last year halfway through his sentence. A Bedfordshire Police spokesman said Khayam was arrested this morning under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and was being conveyed to prison.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "If an offender is in the community on licence and his behaviour gives cause for concern, he is liable to be recalled back to prison."

Meanwhile, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, speaking on BBC Radio 4, today denounced the Danish cartoons as a "quite deliberate racist attack" on the Muslim community.

But he warned that violent reactions by Muslims risked doing more damage to the name of Mohammed than the cartoons.