Trump administration 'to accept UK Koran burner as refugee' following free speech row

Officials from the State Department are preparing to help Hamit Coskun flee the UK if his acquittal is overturned this week.

Mr Coskun was found guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence last June after shouting "f*** Islam" as he held a flaming Islamic text aloft during a protest in Rutland Gardens, Knightsbridge, west London, on February 13 last year.

He won an appeal against his conviction in October, but the Director of Public Prosecutions will ask the High Court to reinstate this.

According to The Telegraph, a senior US administration official said his case was “one of several cases the administration has made note of”.

Read more: Accused Bondi terror attack gunman makes first court appearance

Read more: Moment pro-Palestine activist targets Jewish Little Britain star Matt Lucas at London Tube station

At a High Court hearing earlier this month, Mr Justice Linden said that since the protest, Mr Coskun had applied for asylum from his home country of Turkey.

His asylum claim is still to be determined.

The judge continued that Mr Coskun had also asked the Home Office to provide him with accommodation under section 4 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, as his "life has been threatened on a number of occasions" and there had been "several acts of violence against him".

He added that Mr Coskun asked that the housing come with "certain conditions" so that "he could live there safely".

Mr Coskun told The Telegraph: “For me, as the victim of Islamic terrorism, I cannot remain silent. I may be forced to flee the UK and move to the USA, where President Trump has stood for free speech and against Islamic extremism,” he said.

“If I have to do so, then, to me, the UK will have effectively fallen to Islamism and the speech codes that it wishes to impose on the non-Muslim world.”

Mr Justice Linden told the court that while the Home Office agreed on December 1 to provide accommodation, the decision was reversed on January 8, prompting Mr Coskun to seek to take legal action.

Turkey-born Mr Coskun, who is half-Kurdish and half-Armenian - and an atheist, was convicted of a religiously aggravated public order offence of using disorderly behaviour "within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress", motivated by "hostility towards members of a religious group, namely followers of Islam", contrary to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and section five of the Public Order Act 1986.

Fining him £240, District Judge John McGarva said Mr Coskun had a "deep-seated hatred of Islam and its followers", and rejected the idea that the prosecution was "an attempt to bring back and expand blasphemy law".

Blasphemy laws were abolished in England and Wales in 2008 and in Scotland in 2021, but blasphemy and blasphemous libel remain offences in Northern Ireland.

Overturning the conviction at Southwark Crown Court last October, Mr Justice Bennathan said that the right to freedom of expression "must include the right to express views that offend, shock or disturb".

He said: "There is no offence of blasphemy in our law. Burning a Koran may be an act that many Muslims find desperately upsetting and offensive.

"The criminal law, however, is not a mechanism that seeks to avoid people being upset, even grievously upset."

Iris Ferber KC, representing Mr Coskun in February, said in written submissions that the Home Office "expressly accepted" that her client "faces exceptional and ongoing safety risk, including threats to his life, arising from his public act of protest".

She continued that in its December decision, the department agreed that the accommodation should be "self-contained, located in an urban area in the south of England... and situated away from communities likely to regard the claimant's actions as blasphemous".

In his written submissions, William Irwin, for the Home Office, said the department had told Mr Coskun's lawyers earlier this month that it had agreed to withdraw its January decision.

He said: "The defendant has taken steps to identify a property which would meet the conditions in the 1 December 2025 decision.

"A self-contained property... which meets those conditions has been identified."

He continued: "The defendant's position is that, following the withdrawal of the 8 January 2026 decision, the claim has been rendered academic."