BBC took terror trainers....paintballing?

The BBC funded a paintballing trip for men later accused of Islamic terrorism and failed to pass on information about the 21/7 bombers to police, a court was told yesterday.

Mohammed Hamid, who is charged with overseeing a two-year radicalisation programme to prepare London-based Muslim youths for jihad, was described as a "cockney comic" by a BBC producer.

The BBC paid for Mr Hamid and fellow defendants Muhammad al-Figari and Mousa Brown to go on a paintballing trip at the Delta Force centre in Tonbridge, Kent, in February 2005. The men, accused of terrorism training, were filmed for a BBC programme called Don't Panic, I'm Islamic, screened in June 2005.

Not mentioned: "Don't Panic, I'm Islamic" was a Beeb documentary on how British Muslims are unfairly stereotyped as terrorists.

Even weirder is the description of activities at Hamid's terror camp:

The court was told previously that Mr Hamid taunted police on his return from an alleged terror training camp in the New Forest where exercises included somersaults, pole-vaulting and paintballing.

Somersaults? Pole-vaulting? Was he planning on attacking Circ Du Soleil?