Donald Trump’s representative held meeting with UK ambassador urging them to release jailed far-right activist Tommy Robinson
DONALD Trump’s representative held a meeting with the UK’s ambassador urging them to release jailed far-right activist Tommy Robinson
Reports suggest after lobbying by the right-wing website Breitbart the former Senator Sam Brownback met with British envoy to Washington Sir Kim Darroch.
There he expressed dismay at the laws around filming trials which saw the anti-Islam campaigner imprisoned for 13 months.
is quoting a British government source, who said Mr Brownback, the US President’s ambassador for international religious freedom, lobbied Mr Darroch at the behest of Mr Robinson’s supporters.
It comes after Steve Bannon, a former Trump advisor and the head of Breitbart, called for Mr Robinson to be freed from jail, saying he was “the backbone of this country”.
The ex-chief White House strategist called the jailed activist, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, a "solid guy".
The British Embassy in Washington made no comment on the discussion, and the US State Department said it did not give readouts of diplomatic discussions.
But a spokesman told Reuters: “We refute as completely false the reports which wrongly assert that Ambassador Brownback urged the UK government to act on this issue or threatened repercussions by the US government in any way.”
Mr Robinson, who founded the English Defence League, was sentenced in May after being arrested outside a courthouse in Leeds.
The 35-year-old was attempting to film the defendants in a trial which had strict reporting restrictions placed on it, and in doing so was guilty of “contempt of court”.
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He had already been on a suspended sentence for a previous contempt offence in Canterbury last year.
The judge who sentenced him said his actions may cost taxpayers "hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds".
This was because the material he published could potentially have led to the collapse of a number of connected trials into Muslim grooming gangs.
But his detention has sparked multiple protests in London, including several outside Downing Street as his supporters call for his release, with the slogan #FreeTommy.