Omar Khayam

Omar Khayam (born 1983) is a British Muslim and convicted drug dealer who achieved a considerable degree of notoriety following a February 2006 protest in London against the Muhammad cartoons; at the protest, he dressed like a suicide bomber.

Early life Khayam was brought up in the Bedford area of Bedfordshire of Pakistani descent. His parents belongs from Punjab, Pakistan. He was released on parole in 2005, having served half of his sentence.

According to a report in the Daily Mirror, he had been a significant local drug dealer in Bedford, known on the street as Skinner. The report stated that he became increasingly radicalised in prison, mixing with extremist Islamists, and promising to sell drugs to aid their cause.

Protest In 2006 the Danish Muhammad cartoons were republished in many newspapers across Europe. Of them, Khayam said "I found the pictures deeply offensive as a Muslim and I felt the Danish newspaper had been provocative and controversial, deeply offensive and insensitive."

In response, at a protest over their publication, Khayam dressed in the style of a suicide bomber. When newspapers traced his whereabouts, he initially refused to apologise, saying his protest was justifiable. However, he later appeared publicly alongside his local Labour MP of the time Patrick Hall to apologise, declaring his actions "wrong, unjustified and insensitive", Hall said "He acted on impulse - couple of friends, they got on the train and got to London, and I believe this was an impulsive, foolish reaction to what he saw was the offence of the publication of those cartoons." His arrest for parole violation was at the direct request of the Home Office in the wake of these news reports, although it is not known if it was directly related to his protest activity. Following his release, more controversy followed Omar Khayam after his appointment as a train cleaner for First Capital Connect in Cambridge, UK.