US imprisonment and torture in Bagram and elsewhere, and aided detainees seeking admission and compensation from the UK government. Controversies and criticisms Anwar al-Awlaki After Anwar al-Awlaki's release from Yemeni detention in 2007, Cage invited the cleric to address their Ramadan fundraising dinners in August 2008 (at Wandsworth Civic Centre, South London, by videolink, as he was banned from entering the UK) and August 2009 at Kensington Town Hall. U.S. authorities claimed that Awlaki was a recruiter for Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and was involved in the radicalisation of terrorists such as Nidal Hassan, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Zachary Adam Chesser, Faisal Shahzad, and Roshonara Choudry. He was killed by the US in a 2011 drone strike. Michael Adebolajo Following the murder of Lee Rigby by Michael Adebalajo in May 2013, Cage reported that Adebolajo had suffered harassment from security services before the offence. A report by the Intelligence and Security Committee of the British parliament later confirmed that the British government may have been complicit in his treatment. Mohamed Emwazi ('Jihadi John') In February 2015, Mohamed Emwazi, a 27-year-old Briton, was identified as the probable masked beheader of civilian captives of ISIS in Syria. Emwazi had, between 2009 and January 2012, been in contact with Cage while in the UK, complaining that he was being harassed by British intelligence agencies. At a press conference the following day, Cage's research director, Asim Qureshi, said Emwazi had been "a beautiful young man" and "extremely kind, gentle and soft-spoken". In Qureshi's view, Emwazi's contact with the UK security services had contributed to his transformation into a killer. Prime Minister David Cameron and Mayor of London Boris Johnson both decried the suggestion that Emwazi's radicalisation was the fault of British authorities. According to the BBC, "Human rights groups say they [Cage] are doing 'vital work' but critics have called the organisation 'apologists for terror'." The Labour Member of Parliament (MP) John Spellar encouraged charities which funded Cage to rethink in light of their recent comments. An article published in Open Democracy in July 2015 described media response in relation to Qureshi's comments as 'both overwrought and plainly misleading; not to mention a serious dereliction of the journalistic duty to hold power to account.'. Partly as a result of Qureshi's statement, the Charity Commission pressured charities that had previously funded Cage to cease doing so., but changed their position on this in October 2015.