Colleagues of Basheer Nafi say he "encourages critical thinking about religious issues and academic balance in his students and thus encourages social responsibility". But last week, the US attorney-general charged him with 50 counts of supporting and financing the Palestinian terrorist group Islamic Jihad. The Home Office has yet to receive an extradition request.

Dr Nafi - who said the charges were "nonsense" - lectures in Islamic studies at Birkbeck College, London, and at the postgraduate Muslim College in Ealing. He was born in Egypt and came to Britain in 1983 as a postgraduate student to King's College London, where he did a PhD in microbiology, before becoming a postdoctoral student at St George's Hospital Medical School, London.

In 1990, he decided that his true academic interest lay in history. He began a PhD at the University of Reading and worked as a writer and translator to pay his way. While doing this PhD, he became involved with the World and Islamic Studies Enterprise think-tank, where he worked alongside Sami Al-Arian, a professor at the University of South Florida.

Professor Al-Arian was arrested last week.

The think-tank had been suspected of being a front for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but it was cleared by a US judge in October 2000. Dr Nafi believes the charges were brought after Professor Al-Arian was suspended from his job.

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"I have never spoken on behalf of Islamic Jihad or represented Islamic Jihad or recruited anybody for Islamic Jihad or raised funds for Islamic Jihad," Dr Nafi told The THES .

Indeed, he has used his weekly column in the London-based Arabic-language daily newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi to question the morality of suicide bombing.

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The US indictment details numerous alleged phone conversations between Dr Nafi and Professor Al-Arian about PIJ finances over a number of years.