Islamist Raed Salah, arrested and jailed in Britain last month, was released last Monday after the High Court in London granted the leader of the Northern Islamic Movement in Israel conditional bail.
Salah was barred from the UK for a speaking tour but still entered the country at London's Heathrow airport in June due to a glitch in the Britain's border computer system.
He contested the exclusion order placed on him by the Home Office. Tayeb Ali, Salah's lawyer in the deportation case, said Salah's release on bail is "the first step towards justice."
The Home Office objected to Salah's bail application based on his anti-Semitic remarks, links to the Hamas-tied Turkish charity IHH and Salah's own ties to Hamas. However, Salah's lawyer Raza Husain refuted the objections and his arguments found favor with UK Justice Stadlen.
Husain denied anti-Semitic arguments attributed to Salah, and argued that other statements the government cited were examples of free speech. Husain also denied that Salah has links to Hamas.
During the hearing, Husain said Salah denies writing an anti-Semitic poem that was circulated in the British press and "finds it offensive" due to its anti-Semitic sentiments.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism obtained a copy of the original poem in Arabic, which can be seen here, and an English translation here. Raed Salah's name appears on the top left of the poem titled "Letter to the Oppressors." The poem was published in the Islamic Movement's weekly Sawt al-Haqq wa-al-Huriyya in January 2002.
Salah has a track record of making anti-Semitic statements. He authored an article after 9/11 which purported that Jews were warned not to go to work at the World Trade Center that day. In 2007 Salah delivered a speech in Jerusalem invoking the anti-Semitic blood libel.
Salah was a passenger on the IHH Mavi Marmara boat that was part of the May 2010 flotilla and the scene of violence. During the voyage, Salah incited IHH operatives to violence with fiery speeches. In May, Salah gave a speech in Arabic to a crowd of thousands at IHH's ceremony in Istanbul to commemorate last year's violent clash (Translation available here).
In 2003, Salah was charged by Israel with funding Hamas. He agreed to a plea bargain in 2005 and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. Salah founded the Al-Aqsa Foundation in Israel in 2000, which serves as the executive wing of Hamas' da'wah headquarters in Jerusalem.
Salah also is a trustee of the Union of Good, designated by the U.S. Treasury in 2008 as a terrorist entity created by Hamas.
The case against the government ban on Salah likely will be heard in September.