Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed was turned away by the british navy rescue in Lebenon

[Don Rizzle]

A ROYAL NAVY warship took about 1,300 people out of Lebanon yesterday as the exodus of foreigners gathered pace.
The assault ship HMS Bulwark carried out the biggest rescue mission of Britons so far. The Ministry of Defence said that some 2,800 people had been transported from Lebanon since the operation began.

 
 
Britain has two sovereign military bases on Cyprus which are receiving evacuees. The RAF had airlifted out small numbers of evacuees. On Wednesday more than 1,000 Britons were taken to Cyprus on the smaller destroyers HMS York and HMS Gloucester.

Last night the extremist cleric Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed claimed that he had tried to board a British vessel but was turned away.

When he travelled to Lebanon last year he was excluded from returning by Charles Clarke, who was Home Secretary then, and was stripped of his leave to remain in Britain, his presence having been ruled to be “not conducive to the public good”.

An MoD spokesman cast doubt on Mr Bakri Mohammed’s claim, saying: “Our understanding is that’s not true.”