Julia Moore, Broadcast Journalist

While I was Weekend Editor at national radio station, LBC and settling in the relatively new Presenter Maajid Nawaz, I put through a man calling himself Rizwan*. It was a risk but we were doing an hour about extremism and so his story and thoughts were relevant. Rizwan was a former extremist who wanted to go to Syria and had planned terrorist attacks.

He told Maajid a chilling aspect of his plans: https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/maajid-nawaz/maajid-talks-to-man-who-wanted-to-assassinate-him/

Initially Maajid didn’t hear his threat clearly because we were coming up to a junction and so had been thinking about that but I said off air to move away from the threats and delve into Rizwan’s experience of radicalisation. As the tale unfolded, we paused going to the break.

After this interview, the police got in touch and I understand he was investigated but we also debated meeting Rizwan on air. Following police advice and both mine and Maajid’s concern, we eventually decided it wasn’t worth the risk.

*Rizwan is an adopted name for on-air.