Three Islamic fundamentalists were jailed yesterday for an arson attack on a London publisher who planned to print an “offensive” book about the Prophet Muhammad.

The attack on the home of Martin Rynja has been compared to the campaign against the publication of Salmon Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.

The door of Mr Rynja’s home was doused with diesel and set ablaze after it was discovered that he intended to publish Sherry Jones’s novel The Jewel of Medina, about the Prophet and his child bride.

The attack was led by Ali Beheshti, who was photographed three years ago at a London protest with his baby daughter dressed in a pink bonnet bearing the slogan “I love al-Qaeda”.

Undercover police followed Beheshti and the other attackers for several weeks and saw them monitoring the publisher and trying to avoid detection by changing their clothes.

Beheshti, 41, and Abrar Mirza, 23, admitted conspiracy to commit arson, being reckless as to whether life was endangered. Abbas Taj, 30, was convicted of the same offence at Croydon Crown Court in May.

Mr Justice Rafferty, sitting at the Royal Courts of Justice, sentenced each of them to four and a half years in jail, saying: “If you choose to live in this country, you live by its rules.”

The judge described Mr Rynja as “a principled” man who had “exercised critical judgment on a literary work and stood up to be counted, knowing that publishing it put him at risk”.

Beheshti, unemployed, of Ilford; Taj, of Forest Gate; and Mirza, a mobile phone salesman of Walthamstow, all East London, planned to spend the night of the attack last September at the Regent’s Park Mosque as part of Ramadan. But shortly after they arrived at the mosque, they set out with “fire-making equipment” for the publisher’s home in Islington, North London.

Mr Rynja’s publishing company, Gibson Square Books, bought the rights to the novel after Random House dropped plans to publish it, fearing “acts of violence”. The American author had insisted that her book was respectful towards Islam and Mr Rynja said he felt that its publication was part of a liberal democracy.

Beheshti is a supporter of the convicted cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, who is fighting extradition to the United States on terrorism charges, and took part in the demonstrations outside the Danish Embassy in London in 2006 over cartoons in overseas magazines. The protesters, who thought the cartoons disrespectful to Muhammad, brandished placards calling for the bombing of the United States and death to Jews and British soldiers in Iraq.

Beheshti, also known as Abu Jihad — meaning holy war — was pictured with his daughter and described her as “the youngest member of al-Qaeda” as protesters waved banners vowing to “Massacre those who insult Islam” and promising “Europe, your 9/11 will come!”

Pictures found on a computer at his home showed Beheshti holding a burning cross at a protest outside the US Embassy in May 2005. Other pictures showed him posing with a gun and a large sword. Beheshti, previously convicted of trying to murder his father, also set fire to his hands with petrol outside the US Embassy during the protest.

His daughter, Farisa, aged 4, is reported to be attending an Islamic school and living with her mother Hannah, a white middle-class British convert.

Andrew Hall, QC, said in mitigation for Beheshti that the arson attack was “an act of protest born of the publication of a book felt by him and other Muslims to be disrespectful, provocative and offensive.

“He wishes me to say now, publicly, that he considers his conduct to have been misguided, disproportionate and counter-productive,” he added.

The Jewel of Medina has yet to be published in Britain.

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