Britain detains 10 foreigners as ‘security threats’

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said the presence of the 10 foreign nationals was ‘‘not conducive to the public good’’.

Meanwhile, police in Beirut detained radical Muslim cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed who arrived in Lebanon on Saturday after sparking outrage in Britain for saying he would not hand Muslims planning bomb attacks over to the police. It was not immediately clear why he was detained in Lebanon. On Wednesday, the United Arab Emirates had denied reports he was in Sharjah.

Bakri—founder and spiritual leader of the now defunct al-Muhajiroun—is one of Britain’s most notorious clerics.

Ten people appeared in a London court under anti-terrorism laws over the July 21 bombing attempt today. All have been charged with keeping information from police hunting suspects.

In a separate court hearing on Thursday, Briton Haroon Rashid Aswat, held on a US extradition warrant for plotting to set up a militant camp in Oregon, was remanded to custody until September.

In Pakistan meanwhile, the Daily Times quoted Syed Faisal Nazki, president of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front’s Punjab chapter, as saying he was illegally detained by police in Lahore. Nazki alleged that the police wanted him to confess to contacts with London-based militant Sufi Bashir Ahmed. When Nazki refused, he was tortured, the report said.

Rushdie calls for ‘Islamic Reformation’

LONDON: British novelist Salman Rushdie, sentenced to death in 1989 by a fatwa for The Satanic Verses, called for an “Islamic Reformation” to update the religion and broaden its appeal to the young. Writing in The Times, he said Muslims were living in ‘‘near-segregation from the wider population’’. Reuters