Why was he Freed to kill?
Decisions on jail cut face probe
TERROR ON OUR STREETS
USMAN Khan was freed from jail less than a year before his attack despite warnings that he posed “a significant risk”.
The judge who gave the then 19-year-old an indeterminate term for a 2010 plot to blow up the London Stock Exchange warned that he could never safely be released.
Mr Justice Wilkie said in 2012 that Khan was “such a significant risk, the public could not be adequately protected” by him being on licence in the community.
However, just a year later his case was appealed and a panel ruled the sentence was too harsh.
Rampage
Khan’s barrister Joel Bennathan said the indefinite term was too tough. He also said the judge was “wrong to promote his offence to a high level of sophistication”.
And he argued Khan was a young man “bigging up” what he intended to do in the hope of recruiting others.
The three judges – including Lord Justice Leveson – gave him a 16-year term instead.
That meant he was automatically let out on a tag after eight years last December.
Justice Wilkie’s wife yesterday said he had no comment, only that what he had to say on the matter can be found in his judgment.
The Parole Board said it had no role in his release and Khan “appears to have been released automatically on licence, as required by law, without being referred”.
Chris Phillips, former head of the National Counter Terrorism Security Office, said:
“We are releasing unreformed jihadis and think a tag is going to keep the people safe. It’s not. The criminal justice system needs to look at itself.”
On Friday, Khan, 28, taped knives to each arm and strapped on a fake bomb to launch his rampage. By the time anti-terror cops shot him in the head he had
murdered Jack
Merritt, 25, and a woman while injuring three other people.
Islamic State last night claimed responsibility for the attack but provided no proof.
Exclusive images from three days before his atrocity show Khan buying a chicken takeaway. The worker who served the maniac said last
TERROR ON OUR STREETS
night: “I can’t believe he was freed to kill.” Our pictures show Khan picking up the food yards from the home in Stafford that is being combed by terror investigators.
Khan, born and raised in
Stoke-on-trent, had been known to police as an Islamic extremist since 14. He was under surveillance after joining the nine-man London Stock Exchange bomb cell, which also plotted a Mumbai-style attack on London – including a plan to assassinate Boris Johnson. Khan told the group he dreamed of opening a terrorist training school in Kashmir.
He was also a friend of hate preacher Anjem Choudary and an activist for his proscribed terror group al-muhajiroun. It is understood he was one of more than 25 Al-muhajiroun activists released in the past 12 months, including Choudary and the other eight members of the Stock Exchange bomb plot.
Former chief prosecutor Nazir Afzal said the Government had been warned of the risk from terrorists being freed while still radicalised. And Dr Rakib
Ehsan of the Henry Jackson Society said: “This attack will cast further doubt over deradicalisation schemes like the Home Office’s Desistance and Disengagement programme.”
Dr Paul Stott, also of the Henry Jackson Society, added: “All these years later and Anjem Choudary’s one-time acolytes are still butchering members of the public on our streets. The Government were warned last year releasing so many Almuhajiroun members was reckless. Now one has struck.”
Additional reporting by Alan Selby, Amy Sharpe, Geraldine Mckelvie, Tracey Kandohla, and Kelly Jenkins.