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"Omar Bakri Detained in Lebanon"
Arab News ^ | 12 August 2005 | Marianne Stigset

Posted on 08/12/2005 12:57:29 PM PDT by mdittmar

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "BEIRUT, 12 August 2005 — Radical cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed, who is being investigated in Britain for his remarks on the London bombings, was detained yesterday in Lebanon moments after giving an interview to Future Television. In the interview, the cleric said he did not intend on returning to Britain and denied having any links to Al-Qaeda.

Bakri, who holds a Lebanese passport, said he left Britain of his own free will and that he had been thinking of returning to Lebanon, which he fled during the war in 1981.

“I left Britain on my own accord though I have not been accused of anything there or in Lebanon... but the London attacks are the reason I have returned,” Bakri declared.

As he left the studios of Future TV in West Beirut after his interview, the 47-year-old cleric was detained in what security sources said was “a routine arrest to determine his reasons for being in Lebanon.”

“He was arrested as soon as he left the (Future TV) building after the interview,” said Future Television reporter and editor Salman Sarieddine. “The General Security was waiting for him outside and took him away in the car. They hadn’t seen the interview, and we were not warned beforehand that this could happen.”

Lebanese Information Minister Ghazi Aridi later said Bakri was arrested as a “precautionary measure.”

The British Embassy in Lebanon said it had not issued any arrest warrant on Bakri, a necessary requirement if the cleric was to be held at Britain’s request."