An Islamist extremist working at one of London’s most famous hospitals has been suspended after being accused of issuing a fatwa-style death threat for blasphemy.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that NHS employee Omar Abdallah Mansuur, 39 – an influential imam – faces claims that he decreed a fellow Muslim should get the death penalty for insulting the Prophet Mohammed.
His broadcast was made to tens of thousands of followers and is thought to be the first time a cleric in Britain has made such a threat.
The terrified victim, now in hiding in Europe, has been warned by police that it is too dangerous for him to visit the UK. ‘It is a living nightmare,’ he said last night. ‘My life is at risk and I am constantly looking over my shoulder.’
But last night, Mansuur denied issuing a death threat, saying he merely stated the Islamic punishment for blasphemy.
In some of his inflammatory diatribes, Mansuur appears on video from inside St Thomas’ Hospital – directly across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament – where he works in procurement.
One sequence shows him going into the hospital via an underground entrance and walking along a corridor before sitting down in an office.
Staff describe bespectacled Mansuur, a British national of Somali origin who lives in North London with his wife and children, as unassuming and polite. But his social media profiles tell a different story.
NHS employee Omar Abdallah Mansuur, 39 – an influential imam – faces claims that he decreed a fellow Muslim should get the death penalty for insulting the Prophet Mohammed
The terrified victim, now in hiding in Europe, has been warned by police that it is too dangerous for him to visit the UK. ‘It is a living nightmare,’ he said. ‘My life is at risk and I am constantly looking over my shoulder’
Mansuur, who works in procurement at St Thomas’ Hospital – directly across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament – denied issuing a death threat, saying he merely stated the Islamic punishment for blasphemy
Using TikTok, Facebook and X, he reaches millions of followers with his hate-filled videos and live broadcasts.
On Friday, after the MoS passed on its evidence, the hospital said Mansuur had been suspended pending an investigation.
Yair Cohen, a lawyer representing the victim, said: ‘I am calling for immediate and decisive action to protect my client.
‘Police forces seem able to swiftly arrest people for far less serious social media activity.’
The National Secular Society said: ‘It’s appalling that here in the UK, Islamists are calling for the death of supposed blasphemers or those who leave Islam. The police and counter-extremism authorities must take this threat seriously, and people who incite murder against those who they see as offending their religion must face justice.’
In one broadcast, Mansuur says of the 32-year-old moderate imam, whom he accuses of making offensive remarks about the Prophet: ‘When he repents, he will be put to death in the manner Muslims are killed. If he refuses to repent he will be caught, killed, then thrown in a hole like a dog.’
The death threat victim vehemently denies insulting Islam and insists comments he made on social media were doctored. The Metropolitan Police said it had referred his complaint to police in the country in which he is hiding.
The target of the ‘fatwa’ told the Met in a statement that he fears he will suffer the same fate as French teacher Samuel Paty, who was beheaded near his school in Paris in 2020 after hate campaigners accused him of showing a cartoon of the Prophet to students.
Author Salman Rushdie (pictured here at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2023) was left blind in one eye after being stabbed onstage by an Islamic extremist as he was about to deliver a public lecture in August 2022
Hadi Matar was sentence to 25 years in prison on Friday for the attempted murder of Salman Rushdie. Pictured here at Chautauqua County Courthouse for his sentencing in Mayville, New York on May 16, 2025
Matar was acting on the fatwa issued against Mr Rushdie by Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989
He said: ‘Mr Mansuur…issued a fatwa against me and that my punishment for insulting the Prophet is death…My life is at risk and I fear for my safety.’ In other videos, Mansuur defends child marriages, saying girls as young as 11 can be married off by their parents without their consent as long as they are virgins.
The death threat follows a disturbing rise in anti-blasphemy incidents in the UK. A Government report last year explained violence was promoted by ‘the availability of jihadist propaganda online’.
Experts say Islamists are being radicalised and then taking it upon themselves to resurrect the ‘crime’ of blasphemy in Britain.
The report was commissioned by the Government’s counter-extremism tsar following flashpoints including the RE teacher forced into hiding after he showed pupils a cartoon of Mohammed at a school in Batley, West Yorkshire.
Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini imposed a fatwa on British author Salman Rushdie in 1989 for his novel The Satanic Verses. Mr Rushdie, 77, lived in hiding for almost a decade and was blinded in one eye when he was attacked by an extremist in New York in 2022. His attacker was last week jailed for 25 years.
Mansuur broadcasts and posts videos in his native Somali language, which appears to have shielded him from the sort of attention authorities have paid to other firebrand preachers. He first accused the moderate imam – whom we are not naming for his safety – of blasphemy in 2022 when he was preaching on an app called Clubhouse. At the time he had several hundred followers. By the time the video re-surfaced on social media in March it had garnered thousands of views.
Mansuur later took part in a live TikTok broadcast with other preachers, and accused the moderate imam of blasphemy.
As a photo of the preacher appeared on screen, Mansuur said: ‘His sentence is death, even if the person repents, the repentance cannot stop the execution…He will be executed for the insult.’
Salman Rushdie also suffered additional injuries in the 2022 attack, including liver damage and a paralysed hand caused by nerve damage to his arm
The moderate imam complained to local police and was given security advice. He said: ‘I was told to avoid mosques and areas with large groups of people. My life is in danger. I am always scared. His followers would take his video as a fatwa.’
In his complaint to the Met, he said: ‘Mr Mansuur… issued a “fatwa” against me that my punishment for insulting the Prophet is death. Threats of death, violence, intimidation and harassment against me have increased and intensified in the last month which has left me living in fear, feeling distressed, worried and anxious.’
In another live broadcast on TikTok in June 2022, Mansuur says the sharia punishment of death for blasphemy must be carried out on a Somali woman he accused of insulting the Prophet. Other speakers, however, urged restraint as she had repented.
The following month, Mansuur issued a video, again on TikTok, against an unidentified man, whom he accused of committing blasphemy. In the shocking video, the caption in Somali reads: ‘This filthy man insulted our Beloved [Prophet]. He is an infidel, and his blood is halal.’ Mansuur then says: ‘Action is required, bravery is required… Each of you should bring forth your capability.’
Last night, campaigners accused Mansuur of inciting murder, but he told The Mail on Sunday his speeches had been ‘taken out of context,’ adding he has never advocated violence.
Of his videos on the moderate imam he said: ‘I was talking about one who insults the Prophet Mohammed. I was giving the opinion of scholars. I didn’t say, go and do this. This is b*******.
‘I haven’t done anything against the law…I was only telling that we will take him to court. Anyone can take your words and twist it. My words are not against the law.’
Asked why he accused others of blasphemy and said their punishment was death, Mansuur said he was just repeating Islamic law.
The National Secular Society said: ‘We’re extremely concerned by the apparent lack of action by authorities on this case. Extremists who promote Islamic penalties for supposed blasphemy pose a serious threat to people’s lives.’
The NHS trust that runs St Thomas’ said: ‘We can confirm Mr Mansuur has been removed from duties pending an investigation into allegations about his behaviour.’
