John Prescott today sent a personal message to the extremist cleric Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed: "Enjoy your holiday... make it a long one".

The Deputy Prime Minister, on the second day of his annual holiday cover for Tony Blair, spoke out after it emerged that the preacher - who left Britain for Lebanon on Saturday - had informed reporters that he was merely taking a break.

Asked about the radical Islamist's suggestion that if he was not welcome in England he would not return, Mr Prescott told a news conference in London: "Good."

He was then asked whether Mr Bakri Mohammed was welcome here, and replied: "I don’t think he is welcome by many people in this country, is he?

"But at the moment he has the right to come in and out. That is the circumstances at present and we have to change situations in this country by law. It’s a democracy, not a dictatorship, for God’s sake. I just say ‘Enjoy your holiday, make it a long one."’

Mr Bakri Mohammed told the BBC that he had travelled to Lebanon of his own free will to visit family at the weekend but planned to return to his home in north London in four weeks.

"I decided myself to go holiday, for four, five weeks and stay with my mother back home," he said. "But anyway, I am going to return back after six or four weeks, unless the Government says I am not welcome."

Sheikh Bakri Mohammed said that he flew from Heathrow to Beirut on Middle East Airlines Flight 202 on Saturday afternoon because he believes that the Government is using his name and reputation to alienate Britain's Muslim community.

"I don't want the British Government to keep using Omar Bakri Mohammed: because of him, because of some cleric we will make a new set of rules and put pressure on the Muslim community," he said.

In the telephone interview, Mr Bakri Mohammed said that he would return to Britain to clear his reputation, adding that he had never committed a crime. But the cleric reiterated his belief that it would be "against Islam" for him to inform the police of any terrorist attacks that he knew were being planned in Britain.

"I say publicly, Islam forbids me to report any Muslims, even if he is oppressive, you see, to the British police," he said. "Islam forbid me, that don't mean I know about crime."

Scotland Yard is understood to have been considering bringing charges against Sheikh Bakri Mohammed, who is the leader of the officially disbanded al-Muhajiroun group, because of speeches he has made in support of jihad against Britain.

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