Parole board not told criminal was on watch list
VICTORIA’S parole board says it had not been told Yacqub Khayre – who carried out Monday’s terror attack in the Melbourne suburb of Brighton – was on a terror watch list before he was released into the community on parole six months ago.
In an interview with 3AW yesterday, Adult Parole Board head Peter Couzens said: “We were not told anything along those lines either at the time of making the order or subsequently.”
Mr Couzens said such information should “absolutely” be shared with the parole board and Corrections Victoria.
Earlier, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said parole decisions for criminals with a “toxic” combination of extremist views and a history of violence should be made by attorneys-general, not parole boards.
Concerns about public safety in the wake of Monday’s attack in Melbourne demanded the decision to “go to the very top”, Mr Turnbull said.
The PM questioned how Khayre – a repeat offender with a history of violence and a known terror plot association – could have been released on parole.
Khayre was regarded by prison authorities as a troublesome “goose”, the Herald Sun reported.
Mr Turnbull said state premiers’ views on parole laws needed to be taken into account when they gathered for the Council of Australian Governments meeting tomorrow.
“I would say that at the very least a decision to grant parole to a person with this background, with this combination of violence and associations with terrorism or terrorists or extremists, that is a decision that should have to go to the very top, in other words to go to the attorney-general,” the PM said.
Parole decisions typically went to the attorney-general in the Commonwealth sphere, he said.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said the Commonwealth should have a role in parole decisions relating to people with known terror links.