BBC's Responsible AI chief previously jailed over immigration offenses, found with al-Qaeda manual

An Algerian national formerly found to be in possession of an al-Qaeda training manual and who was later sentenced to 9 months in prison for immigration offenses is now the principal data scientist in the Responsible AI division at the BBC.

This was first reported by The Telegraph on Saturday, and then independently confirmed by The Jerusalem Post.

The case involves Hicham Yezza, who was working in an administrative role at the University of Nottingham when, in May 2008, university staff discovered a copy of an al-Qaeda training manual on his work computer and alerted the authorities.

The document had been sent to him by his friend, postgraduate student Rizwaan Sabir, who was researching Islamist terrorism and allegedly wanted help printing it.

On May 14, 2008, both men were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 and detained for around six days. They were released without charge, after Yezza maintained that he had no involvement in terrorism and said the document had been sent to him for printing, not for operational purposes.

The Nottingham Two arrests and immigration conviction

The case sparked outrage from academics and civil-liberties campaigners, and the case became known as the “Nottingham Two” arrests.

Following his release from the terrorism investigation, Yezza was immediately rearrested under immigration legislation and authorities sought to deport him to Algeria.

In 2009, Yezza was sentenced to nine months in prison for an immigration-related offense involving his claim to have valid permission to remain in Britain. He was released after five months, and is now a British citizen.

On returning from prison, Yezza launched Ceasefire Magazine, which describes itself as an independent political and cultural publication motivated by "a belief in the free exchange of radical and ground-breaking ideas."

On his LinkedIn, Yezza listed himself as editor-in-chief of the magazine from September 2010 to September 2021. Since his departure, the magazine has become significantly less active. Its most recent article appears to be a May 2025 Comment piece titled 'Dispossession resistance is a natural law right of the Palestinian people.'

The piece, by Asim Qureshi, refers to Hamas as a "faith-based movement" and says "until the entirety of the Zionist colonial entity and all its settlements are dismantled, the Palestinians will be entitled to exercise their natural law right to resist their dispossession and recover what was unlawfully stolen." However, as Yezza has apparently taken a step back from the magazine, no relationship can be drawn between him and its current content.

Yezza's BBC career and previous anti-Israel statements

Outside of Ceasefire Mag, Yezza served as an Editorial Consultant for Al Jazeera from November 2017 to June 2019. He then spent three years and ten months at the BBC in an editorial capacity, first as a MENA expert and then as a Senior Journalist in BBC Monitoring's central editorial Data Hub team.

In his time as a MENA expert, Yezza reported on the war in Gaza despite his previous anti-Israel stances.

As of July 2025, he is the Principal Data Scientist for Responsible AI at the BBC, "helping guide and shape how the BBC approaches and applies responsible AI use across the organization."

Prior to his employment with the BBC in 2021, Yezza was an active commenter on social media, frequently speaking about the "occupation and apartheid" in Israel.

Many of his posts in the year 2018 revolved around Israel, his support for Palestinian resistance, and his defense of Jeremy Corbyn against accusations of antisemitism.

He also tweeted that rockets being fired from Gaza into Israel were “resist[ance]."