Fridae

The leader of the Al-Muhajiroun group has issued a fatwa (a decree handed down by an Islamic religious leader) against Al-Fatiha, a lesbian and gay group last week.

Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, told a Birmingham newspaper that he opposed Al-Fatiha, an organisation of gay and lesbian Muslims.

He said: "Never will such an organisation be tolerated in Islam and the ruling for such acts is death." He said that the group was illegitimate and called its members "apostates."

According to a report on a gay website, Sheikh Bakri has been implicated in a poster campaign last year urging Birmingham Muslims to "kill the Jews". He is also allegedly an associate of Osama Bin Laden, who is wanted on terrorism charges.

A spokesman for Al-Fatiha said they are taking the threat seriously but gay Muslims are used to being victimised which was the whole purpose of setting up Al-Fatiha.

"Issuing fatwas against people who are expressing their natural sexuality does little for progressing Islam." He added.

Sheikh Bakri denied being homophobic in a Sunday Mercury interview last year, saying "although homosexuality is a crime and disease we have nothing against them as long as they do it in private behind closed doors."

He has previously exercised his religious standing. He called for the death of playwright Terence McNally after he portrayed Jesus Christ as a homosexual in the play Corpus Christi.

He also declared a 24-year-old Birmingham-born student Abdullah Bai a martyr after he suicide-bombed an Indian army barracks in Kashmir near Pakistan.

Most scholars agree that the Islamic holy book the Koran condemns homosexuality and some strict Middle East countries punish such acts with death.

Sheikh Bakri who is also the judge of the Islamic Shar'iah Court in London has the sole authority in the UK to issue fatwas.