Omar Khayam

Who is Omar Khayam?

Omar Khayam is a British Muslim and convicted drug dealer who achieved a considerable degree of notoriety following a protest in which he dressed like a suicide bomber. In February 2006 he attended protests in London against the Muhammad cartoons.

Khayam was brought up in the Bedford area of Bedfordshire, which is home to a small number of Asian descendants, as well as a few other ethnic minorities. The area has a "growing" drugs and gangs problem and when Khayam was 16 he was charged with throwing 2oz bag of crack cocaine from a car window to try to avoid detection from the pursuing police. He got eight years in 2002 for possession of a class A drug with intent to supply and a fine for having a small amount of heroin, but his sentence was cut to five-and-a-half years on appeal. 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

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."