Corbyn: Terrorists should not always serve full terms

Party leaders trade insults over who’s to blame

JEREMY Corbyn was yesterday accused of being a ‘danger’ to Britain after he said terrorists should ‘not necessarily’ serve their full prison sentences.

The Labour leader made the comments amid an intensifying political row with the Tories over which party was to blame for failings behind the London Bridge terror attack.

Boris Johnson said it was ‘repulsive’ that someone as ‘dangerous’ as jihadist Usman Khan could be released from prison after ‘only serving eight years’.

He said Khan was walking the streets due to laws brought in by a ‘Leftie government’ under Labour’s Gordon Brown in 2008.

When the Tories brought in a Bill to scrap automatic releases for offenders like Khan in 2011, Mr Corbyn voted against the change, the Conservatives said.

But as the war of words escalated, the Labour leader blamed Tory budget cuts for ‘missed chances to intervene’.

He told an election rally in York that ‘we all pay a price’ for cuts to public services.

Convicted terrorist Khan, 28, was shot dead by police on Friday after he went on a knife rampage, killing two former University of Cambridge students and injuring three others. Having been released halfway through his 16-year sentence, he was on licence and wearing an electronic monitoring tag when he carried out the murders.

He had been a guest at a prisoner rehabilitation conference in Fishmongers’ Hall in London at the time.

Mr Johnson told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: ‘The reason this killer was out on the streets was because of automatic early release which was brought in by a leftie government.’ The Prime Minister vowed to change the law to ensure people are not released early when they commit serious offences. He told the BBC that 74 people jailed for terror offences and released early will have their licence conditions reviewed. He said they would be ‘properly invigilated to ensure there is no threat to the public’.

But quizzed on more recent cuts to police and probation services, Mr Johnson sought to distance himself from Conservative administrations in power since 2010, saying: ‘I’ve only been in office for 120 days.’

Mr Corbyn was asked by Sky’s Sophy Ridge if those convicted of terror offences should serve a full jail term. He said: ‘I think it depends on the circumstances, it depends on the sentence but crucially depends on what they’ve done in prison.’ He said they should ‘not necessarily’ serve the full term.

The Labour leader also said the UK should ‘take responsibility’ for British suspected jihadists in Northern Syria. He was also quizzed on the police’s decision to shoot dead Khan, to which he responded: ‘I think they had no choice.’ In a speech later in the day during which Mr Corbyn slammed Britain for its ‘failed’ wars, he said cuts to public services ‘can lead to missed chances to intervene in the lives of people who go on to commit absolutely inexcusable acts’.

Last night, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said of Mr Corbyn’s remarks: ‘Soft on crime and soft on terror.’ Home Secretary Priti Patel added: ‘Jeremy Corbyn believes that terrorists should “not necessarily serve full prison sentences”. We believe they should serve every single day of their sentence. Who do you trust to keep you safe?’ In 2011 Mr Corbyn voted against ending the Labour policy of automatically releasing terrorists after serving half their sentence.

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill meant they could only be considered for parole after serving two-thirds of their term. The Bill passed in 2012 but it was too late to be applied to Khan. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the Tories had a new policy to enforce a minimum 14-year term for a person convicted of a serious terrorist offence.

A Labour spokesman said: ‘Jeremy Corbyn has always been clear that prisons should be about keeping our communities safe, that means as well as being about punishment they should be about turning lives around to reduce the number of victims of crime.’

‘Soft on crime and soft on terror’

SENTENCING usman Khan in 2012 for conspiring to blow up the London Stock Exchange, the judge described him as a ‘serious jihadist’ who should not be freed until he was no longer a public safety risk.

Thanks to calamitous failings in the criminal justice system, that advice was ignored. As a result, two people are dead and three more seriously wounded.

of course, everyone wants to know who’s to blame. And there are plenty of candidates – from the judge who overturned Khan’s open-ended sentence on appeal, to whoever thought it was a good idea to bring him to a rehabilitation seminar at the scene of a previous terror attack.

But there is an even more urgent question. Could something similar happen again?

Yesterday the Prime Minister said 74 convicted terrorists have been released from prison on licence in recent years. Can we be sure they too don’t pose a threat?

Quite rightly, Boris Johnson has ordered a review of all those cases. Indeed, one convict has already been rearrested on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts.

Mr Johnson also insists terrorists must serve their full sentences, rather than automatically being released after just half.

But that should be just the start. The whole system of monitoring and controlling known jihadis must be re-evaluated.

The Mail believes passionately in rehabilitation. But extremists such as usman Khan don’t want to be rehabilitated. They want to wage war on British values.

For such men, prison is the only safe option. For as long as is legally possible.