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A radical cleric who said Muslim members of the British armed forces should be executed has been arrested by police, sparking claims of a 'witch-hunt' against his community.
Abu Izzadeen, 31, also gained notoriety when he denounced John Reid as "an enemy of Islam and Muslims" when the Home Secretary visited east London last year.
Scotland Yard said he was being questioned on suspicion of allegedly encouraging terrorism.
But the radical Muslim leader, Anjem Choudhury, said the arrest was further proof of a "witch-hunt" against the community.
In a video recording obtained by ITV News made in 2004 but broadcast this week, Mr Izzadeen is heard preaching: "So those so-called enemies to Allah who join the British Government - 'cos remember the British Government, my dear Muslim brothers, are crusaders - crusaders come to kill and rape Muslims.
"Whoever joins them - he who joins the British Army, he who joins the American army, he is a mortal Kaffir.
And his only hukum (punishment) is for his head to be removed."He defended later his remarks saying that capital punishment was the penalty for those who left Islam.
Yesterday's arrest is understood not to relate to the broadcast, but to a speech he delivered in Birmingham last year in which he reportedly praised the July 7 suicide bombers.
Mr Choudhury described Mr Izzadeen as a "natural target" and said British law was "biased against Islam and Muslims".
Claims that 'Britain is a police state for Muslims' were raised at the Cabinet yesterday.
Abu Bakr made the claims after a court refused to extend a police application to extend his detention for questioning over an alleged plot to capture a British Muslim soldier in the city.
There were also reports the alleged plotters planned to decapitate him on video.
A Labour MP, David Winnick, protested in the Commons about the 'lurid' reports surrounding the case.
Jack Straw, the Leader of the House, told MPs the claim that Britain was a police state was 'ludicrous' and 'absolute utter nonsense'.
A Number Ten spokesman also defended the police action and described the claims as a "simplistic caricature".
"In a police state the court would not have been able to release someone who was questioned by the police.
In a police state that person would not then be able to go onto the national airwaves and be interviewed," said the Prime Minister's official spokesman.
"Equally in a free society the police have an absolute duty and responsibility to act on information if by doing so they believe they are protecting society from a threat.
That is the balance we have to achieve in a democratic society.
To call the process a police state is categorically wrong." He denied leaks about the alleged plot came from Whitehall sources in the Government.
"Leaks were not in way approved by the government and the people should identify where these leaks came.
They were not in any way authorised," he said.
Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary told the Cabinet the Cohesion Commisison has been asked to identify the reasons 'why there are such variations between how some communities respond' to such cases.
- INDEPENDENT
