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The BBC was engulfed in a row today after it emerged that an imam chosen to quiz Tory leadership contenders over their past remarks had himself tweeted controversial comments about Israel and women.

Abdullah Patel appeared on the BBC’s flagship TV debate last night and asked the five candidates whether they believed words had consequences, and said he had seen first hand the impact of Islamophobic rhetoric on his community.

The spotlight was immediately turned on Boris Johnson, who said he was sorry for the offence his comments about veiled Muslim women looking like letter letterboxes and bank robbers had caused.

Michael Gove condemned Islamophobia as “repugnant” and attacked Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for comments he claimed were “disgusting” and anti-Semitic.

Writing on Twitter after the debate, Mr Patel said he had asked the question because he wanted the candidates to promise that “things would change” and largely branded the response from them as “nothing short of disappointing and deluded”.

His past controversial comments on Twitter include: “Every Political figure on the Zionist’s payroll is scaring the world about Corbyn. They don’t like him. He seems best suited to tackle them!” He also shared an image suggesting the relocation of Israel to the US as a way of solving the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The Twitter account of Mr Patel, deputy headteacher at the Al-Ashraf Primary School in Gloucester, has since been taken down. Today the school suspended him.

The Evening Standard understands that he does not dispute that he posted the tweets a number of years ago. The imam is also believed to work closely with Jewish organisations, including visiting synagogues, and to have posted other messages supporting Jewish communities.

He is said to accept that his comments are controversial but believes there is a distinction between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism which he has reportedly condemned on Twitter.

He has also allegedly tweeted at least one message about women likely to cause controversy, which read: “Generally, men are the predators, but women need to realise this and be smarter. It takes 2 to tango, and if you put yourself in that position, don’t expect every man to pass up the opportunity to take advantage of you. Don’t be alone with a man!”

Arch-Brexiteer Mark Francois criticised the BBC over the imam’s appearance on Our Next Prime Minister, which was watched by an average of 5.3 million viewers.

He said: “You would have thought the BBC could employ better researchers than this in an era when they are proposing to charge 75-year-old pensioners for the licence fee.

“It turns out that their ‘fully representative imam’ appears not to be representative of moderate Islam but has expressed views, including allegedly anti-Semitic views, that most fair-minded people would find unacceptable.”

The BBC insisted it had carried out proper checks.

Rob Burley, editor of Our Next Prime Minister, wrote on Twitter: “1) For those wondering how, given his tweets, Abudullah Patel made it onto the debate last night. The answer: his Twitter account had been deactivated, his tweets could not be read and his account did not exist when searched for. 2) It was AFTER the show that Mr Patel reactivated his account revealing his tweets.

"We wouldn’t have put him on the programme if these were public before broadcast but they were not.

"We also carried out a number of other routine checks which didn’t uncover anything untoward.”

Mr Patel could not be reached for comment on the claim that his account had been deactivated before the programme.

BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Nicky Campbell tweeted: “We had the imam from the BBC Tory leadership debate on our programme this morning. His social media comments have been extremely disturbing. We should have checked. We didn’t. I’m sorry.”

There was controversy about a second member of the public who quizzed the Tory contenders.

The Guido Fawkes website said Aman Thakar, from London, who asked the candidates whether they would call a general election, was a Labour council candidate in Southwark in 2018 and was appointed as a legal assistant to the party’s inquiry into anti-Semitism.

He could not be contacted for comment.

The BBC said it knew about all the questioners’ political links and any affiliation did not mean they could not go on the programme.

But Brexit minister James Cleverly, who is backing Mr Johnson, said: “I love and value the BBC, but stuff like this makes it really hard to defend you from critics.”