The man who dressed as a suicide bomber during protests against the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad was today arrested and taken to prison at the request of the Home Office.

Omar Khayam was pictured outside the Danish Embassy in London last Friday wearing a simulated suicide bombing outfit to denounce the cartoons, first published in a Danish paper.

The 22-year-old student was sentenced to six years in jail in 2002 for possessing crack cocaine with intent to supply. He is still on licence after being released last year, halfway through his sentence.

A Bedfordshire Police spokeswoman said that Khayam was arrested this morning under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 for breach of parole and was being conveyed to prison.

She said that the instruction to arrest him came from the Home Office and he would be detained pending a Parole Board hearing.

Khayam yesterday apologised "wholeheartedly" for his behaviour, appearing in public beside the chairman of his local mosque and his local MP, Labour's Patrick Hall, to admit that it was "wrong, unjustified and insensitive" to protest dressed as a suicide bomber. He apologised in particular to the families bereaved by the July 7 suicide attacks on London last year.

The Metropolitan Police has set up a special unit to investigate the protests, which saw demonstrators wield placards praising the July 7 and September 11 bombers and calling for the decapitation of those who offended Muhammad.

Police at the scene of the protests decided not to intervene to avoid a riot, but did arrest and briefly detain two pro-freedom of speech protesters who were handing out leaflets showing the cartoons.

One of the men, who gave his name only as John, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning: "We didn’t go there with the intention of provoking people, we went there with the intention of making a point about free speech and, ideally, engaging people in a discussion. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the opportunity to do so."

Khayam's arrest was carried out for breaching the terms of the Home Office licence under which he was released from jail. Inmates on parole can be returned to prison if they reoffend, breach specific conditions of their licence or fail to attend appointments with their probation officer. They can also be recalled for "bad behaviour" which causes concern to their probation officer and undermines their supervision in the community.

Officers from the Metropolitan Police travelled to Bedfordshire yesterday with the intention of speaking to Mr Khayam about the incident, but returned without interviewing him. A source who knew him in jail told the Daily Mirror that Khayam - known to pals as Skinner - was influenced by extremists while locked up for drug offences.

He told the newspaper: "He was a very quiet guy and would only ever speak out when he was with other extremists."

Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers (Napo), said that deciding whether to recall Khayam to jail would be "very difficult" and the student's probation officers would have to decide whether dressing up as a suicide bomber constituted "bad behaviour".

He added: "You couldn’t have a condition of parole that you don’t take part in a protest about your faith."

Meanwhile, demonstrations continued across the Islamic world against Danish diplomatic missions. The protests, which claimed six lives yesterday, erupted in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Iranian demonstrators throwing firebombs briefly stormed into the Danish Embassy in Tehran. Between 20 and 30 protestors climbed over the walls into the compound, while others in a crowd outside numbering up to 300 people outside hurled objects including petrol bombs at the building.

Thousands of rioters clashed with police and NATO peacekeepers across Afghanistan in renewed protests against the accord. One person was killed and scores wounded.

Norwegian troops fired on hundreds of protesters outside their base in Maymana, a city in the northwest, after the demonstrators shot at them and threw grenades, said Mohammed Latif, the provincial governor. One of the demonstrators was shot dead while two others were wounded.

Denmark urged its citizens to leave Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, extending travel advice to Danes that already covers much of the Islamic world.

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