A senior British police officer who dressed up as Osama bin Laden to attend a village fair has been dismissed from his job helping to build Afghanistan's security forces.
Chief Superintendent Colin Terry of the Devon and Cornwall police dressed up as the al-Qaeda leader, complete with turban, Arab robes and a face mask, to attend the local charity event last week.
He was spotted by a photographer and reported to the Independent Police Complaints Commission by his own force. Now he has also been dismissed by the Foreign Office, which oversaw his policing contract in Afghanistan.
"Chief Superintendent Colin Terry will not be returning to the EUPOL mission," a spokesman for the Foreign Office said today.
EUPOL is a European Union-backed police training scheme.
Mr Terry has said he was surprised by the outrage his costume had caused.
"I am quite horrified that someone would see this negatively," he was quoted as saying in the
Guardiannewspaper at the time. "This is a local event that has been running for many, many years, raising money for charity."