A director of the controversial campaign group Cage has been charged under the Terrorism Act, after refusing to give police his computer passwords.

Muhammad Rabbani was detained at Heathrow Airport under counter terrorism stop-and-search powers and declined to give his logins as he returned from a foreign trip last year.

The 36-year-old international director of the group attended Bethnal Green police station in east London with his lawyer to answer bail and was charged with seeking to frustrate a search under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

The group, which campaigns against what it says is oppressive counter terrorism policing against Muslims, said Mr Rabbani would fight the charge, in what it regards as a test case against the stop-and-search powers.

Cage caused outcry in 2015, when one senior officer described the Islamic State executioner ‘Jihadi John’ as having once been a ‘beautiful young man’.