LEBANON: 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 the UK.
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.
Syrian-born Mr Bakri (45) left the UK after learning he could be prosecuted for incitement charges. He claimed that he was simply going on holiday.
The cleric is the former leader of the Islamist group al-Muhajiroun and is alleged to have called the July 7th London bombers the "magnificent four" and pronounced that Muslims were no longer bound by a covenant of security which forbade them to attack British soil.
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.
Last night the Lebanese interior ministry denied Mr Bakri had been arrested at the request of any other country and said he was being held at general security facilities.
In the Future TV interview, Mr Bakri said al-Qaeda 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.
"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."