Muslim leaders reacted with anger last night after two of the nine suspects alleged to be involved in a plot to kidnap and kill a British soldier were released without charge.

West Midlands Police were told by a judge, sitting behind closed doors, that they had either to charge or release the two. They chose to release them.

There was also concern that the two men had not been released on police bail — allowing officers to monitor their movements — suggesting that Nicholas Evans, the district judge, may have refused such a request from the Crown Prosecution Service.

Officers were given a further 72 hours to question the remaining seven about the alleged plot. They will then have to go back to court to apply for a further extension.

One of the two released men, Abu Bakr, told the BBC last night: “I was not even told what it was I was supposed to have done, what allegations had been made against me, why my family had suffered or why I had suffered for seven days and had my life disrupted.”

Meanwhile, Salma Yaqoob, a councillor in Sparkbrook, Birmingham, said that she was convinced that all the men would be released by the end of the week. “The relief on the streets is palpable,” she said. “I cannot begin to explain how shaken everybody was by this.”

It is a setback for an inquiry that has been dogged by leaking since Wednesday last week when more than 700 police arrested the nine men in dawn raids in the city’s predominantly Asian suburbs.

The two men were freed from Chace Avenue police station in Coventry in the early hours yesterday after the CPS failed to convince the judge, who specialises in terrorism cases, that they had a sufficient case to question them further.

After the hearing, at Coventry Magistrates’ Court, which lasted almost five hours, Gareth Peirce, the civil rights lawyer who represents the men, said that there had been no mention of any plot to behead a Muslim soldier for propaganda purposes.

She said in a statement: “Not a word was ever mentioned to either of them about a plot to kidnap or the grisly suggestion of a beheading, or even of a soldier at all. Both have been met with a consistent refusal over seven days for any explanation for their arrest. They are convinced that others in the police station must be as innocent as they are and urge that they also be swiftly released.”

There is anger among the Muslim populations of Alum Rock and Sparkhill, who from the start were convinced that all nine would be released without charge. Allah Ditta, 50, a leader of the Ludlow Road mosque, where at least one of the arrested men worshipped, said that the events had fuelled people’s scepticism of an impending “Forest Gate scenario” [a reference to a man who was shot during an antiterrorism raid in East London in which he and his brother were held; no charges were brought].

He said: “The police and secret services must be very sure before they arrest anybody because this is not helping community relations. It has had the effect of demonising Muslims. This has created even more suspicion about whose door is to be knocked down next. This is a close-knit community. We are all interactive — we all eat and meet together — so does this mean that if you talk to the next person you become a legitimate target for arrest?”

Mohammad Abdul Bari, the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said on a visit to the city: “Over the last four or five years, there have been high-profile raids and then when most of the people have been released, there was no news at all. We ask that if people are released, that there is publicity to show it and apologise to the families, because police can make mistakes but we are then left with an image that we cannot erase.”

A spokesman for West Midlands Police played down suggestion that the investigation is foundering. Police now have until the early hours of Saturday to charge the remaining men, release them or apply for an extension to custody.

The spokesman said: “In all such operations people may be released without charge at this stage, while others may remain in custody for further investigation. This is to be expected in large, complex criminal inquiries where a number of arrests have taken place.

“We still have a large amount of evidence seized during the searches to examine and our inquiries continue with those that remain in custody.

“Our priority today remains . . . to ensure that we balance the safety of the public against the rights of the men we have in custody.”

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