The vegetarian former Smiths frontman and animal-rights activist, who is currently promoting a new album "Ringleader Of The Tormentors", has long courted controversy.

In an interview with fanzine True to You earlier this year, he said he supported "the efforts of the Animal Rights Militia in England" and understood "why fur-farmers and so-called laboratory scientists are repaid with violence - it is because they deal in violence themselves and it's the only language they understand".

Animal-rights activists are, he said "usually very intelligent people who are forced to act because the law is shameful or amoral".

Last year, he told NME magazine he had been quizzed by the FBI and Special Branch over his outspoken criticism of the US and British governments.

He has previously branded George Bush and Tony Blair "cruel and morally bankrupt" and said that like Saddam Hussein they were "egotistical dictators".