UK Muslim officer excused duty at Israeli embassy

LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) London's police chief launched an urgent review today of a decision to excuse a Muslim officer from guard duty at the Israeli embassy.

The Sun newspaper reported that Constable Alexander Omar Basha told his bosses he morally objected to Israel's 34-day war against Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

However, the Association of Muslim Police Officers, which represented Basha in media interviews, said he was moved last week because he felt ''uncomfortable and unsafe'' guarding the embassy in west London.

''This is about the welfare of an individual and not about a moral issue,'' the association's Superintendent Dal Babu told BBC radio. ''His wife is Lebanese and his father is from Syria.'' Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has been trying to improve integration among Britain's ethnic and religious communities following suicide bomb attacks by four Islamists on London's transport network in July 2005 killed 52 commuters.

''Having learned of this issue I have asked for an urgent review of the situation and a full report into the circumstances,'' Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said in a statement.

Critics of the police decision said they feared it would open the floodgates for officers of any religion or belief to refuse to carry out certain duties.

Brian Mackenzie, former president of the Superintendents' Association of England and Wales, told BBC radio: ''If an officer has a conflict, I suppose the obvious answer is that he should leave the diplomatic protection department or in fact he should leave the police service.'' The police said in a separate statement that officers occasionally asked to be moved from a specific duty.

''Every case is considered separately, balancing the needs of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) against those of the individual and the role which he or she is asked to perform.

''However, the needs of the MPS take precedence and the organisation reserves the right to post an officer anywhere in the MPS,'' it said.

Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Ali Dizaei, one of Britain's most senior Muslim police officers, said that ''special dispensation is given all the time for a variety of reasons''.

''This will not lead to a mutiny on the ship. This is an individual case,'' he told BBC radio. ''I don't think it will create a dangerous precedent.'' REUTERS PB PM1502