SHAMELESS9 VILE SMILE

Smug Choudary out ofjail & now ‘more iconic for vile extremists’

FREED Islamist hate preacher Anjem Choudary waves with a smirk at his bail hostel yesterday.

The defiant Islamic State supporter was let out of Category A HMP Belmarsh in the morning, having qualified for automatic release after serving half his five-and-a-half year sentence.

Choudary was flanked by four security guards as he appeared outside his North London digs for just one minute.

The 51-year-old cannot speak to the press under bail conditions believed to be some of the strictest ever issued to an offender, simply giving a nod and grin before strolling back inside.

Radicaliser Choudary, jailed in 2016 for promoting IS and pledging allegiance to the terror group, is sharing the hostel with 40 other people. Some now reportedly want to move.

Choudary later walked out of the hostel, at 5pm, and was whisked away in a waiting Vauxhall Zafira.

He sat in the back with a woman wearing a burka.

A man in the front seat hid his face with his coat as the car drove away.

Security and intelligence expert Professor Anthony Glees, of Buckingham University, said Choudary’s followers will be victorious.

Prof Glees said: “His sentence was considered by many to be light. While he may not literally have blood on his hands, in the sense that he encouraged others to go and fight for Islamic State, in a very real moral sense his hands are drenched in the blood of IS’S victims.

“I agree with prison minister Rory Stewart that Choudary remains ‘a dangerous and pernicious man’.

“Can we have confidence that the police and MI5 will stop him contacting future recruits? He will be seen even more now as an iconic figure, someone who has taken on the British state and come out the other side.

“He swore allegiance to IS and in my view he threw away his British citizenship when did. He supports [IS] and should go there now. He is a highly dangerous individual and we should pray that he leaves these shores.”

Locals said they did not want the married father-of-five living near them. Rikki Jean said: “He’s the last thing we need. What’s the point in arresting dangerous people if he’s going to be out and in our community in two years?”

SECURITY EXPERT