He has come a long way from a village in Tunisia to becoming a respected adviser to Scotland Yard chiefs and the CEO of a British television channel who rubbed shoulders with ministers. But who is the real Mohamed Ali Harrath and what drives him?

Tunisian judicial sources say that he joined the Islamic Tendency Movement, now called Ennahdha, in the 1980s. In 1986, he created the Tunisian Islamic Front, which he describes as “a non-violent political party founded . . . to oppose the one-party state in Tunisia and to seek change through peaceful means”.

As a result, he says, he was repeatedly arrested, maltreated and interrogated. In 1987, he says, he was held in solitary confinement for almost a year, subjected to interrogation and torture.

He fled to Algeria in 1990, during a government crackdown on the FIT, and insists that he ceased political activity the same year. However, he specifically states: “There is nothing wrong or criminal in trying to establish an Islamic state as that was the nature of the Tunisian state for 1,200 years prior to the French brutal occupation.”

In an extraordinary outburst, he accused The Times of spying for the Tunisians. “Having read your questions, they seem quite identical to questions asked to me by the Tunisian intelligence services using recruited spies. I refused to co-operate with the Tunisian intelligence services and it looks like they are using the backdoor to get the same from The Times,” he said.

In 2004 Mr Harrath set up the Islam Channel, which according to government research is watched by 59 per cent of the country’s Muslims.

Critics of Tunisia will be sceptical about judicial or political sources who suggest that Mr Harrath fled the country and went to Islamabad to co-ordinate his followers’ military training in 1991.

Mr Harrath admits that he went to the Pakistani capital, but says that it was to join the International Islamic University. It has often come under the spotlight. Six days after the September 11 attacks on the United States, the journalist Yvonne Ridley reported that, after leaving the university, “thousands of graduates each year go on to join the Taleban”.

In 1991, the Tunisians allege, Mr Harrath met Osama bin Laden in Peshawar to seek assistance. But they have produced no evidence to substantiate this and Mr Harrath denies it. He also says he has never had contact with the Taleban.

In 1993 he turned up at the offices of Amnesty International in Vienna and convinced the organisation to support his claim for political asylum. It was aware that he had been convicted in Tunisia for membership of the FIT but, after reading the available papers, it concluded that he had been “convicted in an unfair court case”. It added: “No cases of violent activities are known to Amnesty International which are connected with this group.”

Mr Harrath arrived in Britain in 1995. He has refused to tell The Times whether Austria had refused his asylum application, saying that such a question had “nothing to do with the red notice”.

Tunisia sought Mr Harrath’s extradition in the late 1990s. His lawyers, Carter-Ruck, claimed: “The UK security services informed Mr Harrath that the UK did not regard him as a threat and that there was no basis for the Tunisian extradition request, which the Tunisian authorities had wholly failed to substantiate.”

In 2000, Britain accepted Mr Harrath as a refugee. He became an adviser to Scotland Yard, where Detective Chief Superintendent Alan Mitchell said in a glowing reference to Mr Harrath in August this year that he helped police to “devise strategies to challenge the narratives of violent extremism”.

Mr Harrath founded the London-based Islam Channel in 2004 and secured its finance. Ofcom said that it decided Mr Harrath was a fit and proper person to hold a TV broadcasting licence after seeking guidance from Interpol, the Home Office and police.

However, an employment tribunal this year ruled that he wrongly dismissed Ms Ridley, who had become his star presenter, and sexually discriminated against her. He alleged that she was blackmailing him by threatening to reveal “the terrorism allegations”, although this was rejected by the tribunal. It said that his evidence was less secure and accurate than Ms Ridley’s.

From refugee to CEO

February 20, 1963 Born in the village of Jelma in the governate of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia
1986 Founds Tunisian Islamic Front
1987 Claims to have been held in solitary confinement for a year, interrogated and tortured
1990 Flees to Algeria
1993 Seeks political asylum in Austria
1995 Seeks political asylum in UK
1997 Britain refuses to extradite him to Tunisia
2000 Given refugee status by UK
2004 Founds Islam Channel and becomes the CEO
2005 Scotland Yard supports Mr Harrath’s annual event for Muslim youth
2007-08 Praised by Scotland Yard for his work in “countering extremist ideology and terrorist propaganda”

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