Scotland Yard was today forced to issue a public appeal for help in tracking down protesters it filmed during a demonstration against satirical cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

The Metropolitan police said they were still trying to trace three men who took part in the demonstration outside the Danish embassy on February 3.

During the protest, placards were paraded demanding the "massacre" of "those who insult Islam".

In the days following the demonstration, the police faced fierce criticism for not arresting demonstrators on the spot. They instead took video footage of the demonstration and said "arrests, if necessary, would be made at the appropriate time".

A Met spokesman said the men were "wanted in connection with serious public order offences which we believe may have been committed during the protest".
He defended the decision not make arrests at the time, saying officers policing the demonstration "had to weigh up" the effect their actions would have on the overall public order situation.

"We have already identified and charged a number of individuals in relation to the demonstration," he said.

At the time, police had said they did not want to inflame the situation.

A special squad, under the code name Operation Laverda, was set up by the Met's post-event investigation unit to review 60 hours of CCTV and footage and investigate 500 complaints from the public.

During the rally, some protesters held placards with slogans such as "Behead those who insult Islam" and "Europe will pay, the Fantastic 4 are on their way" - an apparent reference to the July 7 bombers who killed 52 people on London's transport network.

The only arrests made were those of two freedom of speech campaigners protesting in favour of the right to publish images of Muhammad.

The police's tactics sparked cross-party calls by MPs to pursue those responsible on the grounds that the threats were an incitement to murder.

Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland secretary, said the police should "bear down ... very heavily" on protesters acting in an "intolerable" way.

The shadow attorney general, Dominic Grieve, told GMTV it was "not a happy state of affairs" when demonstrators acting in such a way "don't end up under arrest before the demonstration is ended".

Six people have since been arrested in connection with the police investigation.

The London demonstration was one of a number of sometimes violent protests against the publication of images of the prophet - which is against Islamic tradition - in a number of European newspapers.
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