JAMAICAN-BORN Islamic cleric Abdullah al-Faisal was deported to Jamaica yesterday after spending four years in a United Kingdom prison for allegedly inciting racial hatred in that country.

Al-Faisal, who left Jamaica to live in the United Kingdom 26 years ago, was yesterday met at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston by two of his Muslim friends who quickly whisked him away from journalists.

al-Faisal arrived on a British Airways flight and spent close to two hours inside the airport where he was processed by immigration officers and the police, before he emerged to the waiting media, and his two Muslim friends – the only ones who appeared to have an interest in his arrival. But it was quite a chase across the parking lot as journalists ran to keep up with al-Faisal after his two friends covered his face and raced with him across the airport’s main parking lot.

“I feel good,” was al-Faisal’s response when reporters asked how he felt to be back in Jamaica after so many years. But his partners hurriedly closed the car door as they warded off journalists.

Mek we see the man face and mek him stop and say a thing,” shouted one passerby.

A few others, unaware that it was the Islamic cleric who was jailed in the United Kingdom, shouted to journalists as they chased al-Faisal across the parking lot: “Is who that?” They, however, appeared still bewildered even after being told who he was.

al-Faisal was not wearing his traditional Muslim head gear and robe. Instead, he was dressed in sweat pants and a shirt and carried an oversized shopping bag.

The UK Government had accused al-Faisal of preaching messages of hate to failed shoe bomber Richard Reid and for influencing Jermaine Lindsay who killed himself and 26 others on an underground train near King’s Cross in London in 2005.

al-Faisal became the first person in more than a century in Britain to be convicted under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act when he was found guilty of soliciting murder and causing racial hatred in 2003.